Earth Rain
by shipperfey
Summary: When it rains, it frakkin’ pours. KL, Earthfic. WIP.
1. Prologue

**Title:** **Earth Rain**  
**Author:** Alice J. Foster (a.k.a. shipperfey)

**Summary:** When it rains, it frakkin' pours.

**Category:** angst. smut. angst. romance. did I mention the angst?

**Spoilers: **Anything up to Season 3 is fair game.

**Characters: **Kara, Lee, and guest appearances by everyone else, including Sam.

**Rating:** NC-17/M for overall angsty smut, mature themes, and bad language.

**Warnings:** nothing that hasn't been mentioned in the rating.

**Started: **12/05/07  
**Finished:** tbd

**Thanks to:** karie22 and anyareed for betaing and pre-betaing (I'll update this section later when the fic is done J)

**Feedback: **Pretty, pretty please.

**Disclaimer: **Don't own the characters and situations you recognize, and I own the ones you don't.

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Prologue

There wasn't a single soul in the entire fleet that didn't hold their breath as they jumped what they hoped would be their last FTL jump ever.

The Galactica CIC was completely silent as they waited for Earth to appear.

Kara Thrace had never felt so scared in her life. She glanced around the room, taking notice of how the President's hands were clutching the Admiral's arm with enough strength to crush Tyllium. Tigh kept his good eye on the Dradis monitor, looking like he needed a drink more than he needed his next breath. Dee kept her eyes closed, her lips moving in silent prayer. Lee—Lee's eyes were wide open, and he was staring at Kara with so much desperation she was worried for a second that the others would notice.

But she knew they wouldn't, because in the grand scheme of things, the unspoken communication between Kara and Lee, or Starbuck and Apollo, didn't matter when they were seconds away from finding Earth.

Gaeta's voice broke the silence, "We found it! We found Earth… Multiple Dradis contacts, all matching Starbuck's predictions! No signs of raiders or basestars."

The entire CIC erupted with relief and joy, and Kara found herself being pulled into a hug by the Admiral and the President at the same time. Tigh's voice echoed through the Galactica and the fleet, announcing that their search for a new home was over.

They'd found Earth.

Kara was hugged and patted on the back by almost every person in the room, everyone apologizing for the past and thanking her for leading them. It wasn't until the familiar arms of Lee Adama encircled her that she let her emotions take over, and she hid her face in his neck as she allowed the tears to flow freely. Her arms hung on to him with all her strength as she slowly realized what had just happened.

They'd found Earth.

She wanted to feel the same happiness everyone around her seemed to feel, but she was startled to realize that happiness was replaced by dread.

They'd found Earth.

_Now what?_


	2. Chapter 01

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Chapter 1

Lee opened the door to his empty apartment. He dropped his duffle bag on the couch and made a beeline towards the refrigerator. It was as empty as he felt, except for the two six-packs at the bottom.

Earth beer still tasted like shit, but it was better than the fermented algae drink that had passed for alcoholic beverages for the last year he'd been on the Galactica. Actually, if he never saw or tasted algae again, he could die happy.

He turned the television on, mostly for background noise. He unzipped his bag and retrieved the thick manila folder that was waiting his inspection.

He'd asked Kara once what she would do if they reached Earth; she'd said she would do the same thing she's done all her life: train pilots. She'd laughed that bitter laugh of hers and explained that the one time in her life she had given that up, things hadn't worked out.

But Kara was gone now, and Lee—Lee who had told her she was crazy and that he couldn't wait for civilian life—he was the one training Earth pilots.

In the first weeks since they made first contact with Earth, they'd been called many names; Survivors was the only name that stuck. The television set announced that they were airing a special on the Survivor's trek through the galaxy in commemoration of the third anniversary of the arrival of the Fleet on Earth.

Lee changed the channel, but every station seemed to be airing a similar special and he shut down the television, angrily throwing the remote at the coffee table.

He finished the beer in two gulps, and this time when he returned from the fridge he brought all of the bottles with him. He glanced at the papers in front of him, sorting through applicants and willing the memories to go away.

Ever since Lee had agreed to work with the United States Air Force, to assist in the design of new aircraft and training of new pilots, enlistment had gone through the roof. Hopeful faces and impressive resumes stared at him, and the thought that Kara would've sorted through this pile in minutes brushed his mind before he finished another beer.

It took an entire six-pack to dull the pain of her loss; it was only then that he could sort through the applications without seeing her face on every page.

♣ **_Three Years Before_**♣

Lee kicked a locker door shut, feeling angrier than he'd ever been.

"Frak!" He shouted at the empty bunks before he heard the hatch open and close. He didn't have to turn around to know who was there.

One week. Those Earth frakkers had kept him and the President around all week, poking and prodding them and digging into their brains for whatever they were looking for.

The metal between two bunk beds refused to give under his closed fist, and Lee glanced down to see the blood starting to pool around his knuckles and running down the back of his hand.

"Lee," her voice came out, sounding so concerned he actually had to turn and look to make sure it was her. His Kara didn't sound like this, never had, but apparently she could. And then she was tugging off one of her tank tops and wrapping it around his hand, which seemed silly to him because there were plenty of other things in the room that could be used as bandages, but he wasn't about to point that out.

"It's fine, I just needed to punch something," he explained, feeling the rage slowly dissipate.

"I know the feeling," she replied with a smirk and he felt his body react to her proximity. "What happened down there?"

He focused on the way she wrapped her tank around his fist, her touch was soft and barely there.

"What happened down there, Lee?" she repeated her question.

"They tested us. They questioned us. They doubted us," he said as he walked towards the table in the middle of the room and rested against it.

"Wouldn't you?" Kara asked, standing against the lockers, two steps away from him. "I mean, wasn't it kind of naïve of us to think that they would accept us with arms wide open?"

Lee let his chin drop to his chest. "They don't know what to do with us; apparently we're their first confirmed off-world contact, and they're terrified that we've led the Cylons to them," he sighed again. "But you're right, we can't blame them for not trusting us. We can't come to them and tell them that an enemy that looks like us destroyed our civilization and expect them not to think twice before accepting us."

Kara moved, resting her hip next to his. "Do you think they will? Accept us?"

Lee shrugged, "Maybe."

"And Sharon, Tigh, and the others?" she asked and he knew the one she worried for the most was a name she didn't mention.

"I don't know; it might be safer for them to stay up here. Tomorrow we'll start to take people down there in raptors. They're talking about quarantining us all for at least six weeks while the local governments down there discuss what to do with us."

She nodded, her eyes staring straight ahead at the lockers.

They stood there in silence, both hearing the sounds of celebration around them. The whole ship echoed with hope; it seemed like they were the only two people left in the fleet who were more scared about the future than hopeful.

Trembling fingers found his uninjured ones and held tight. "They're so happy, Lee," she pointed out, and he heard the guilt in her voice. If anything went wrong down there, he knew she would forever blame herself. "I guess it's just you and me," she echoed her own words from years before.

Her lips found his, and he couldn't hear the sounds of celebration around them anymore.


	3. Chapter 02

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Chapter 2

Kara removed her muddy boots before entering the kitchen. She was soaking from the rain and she was sure she smelled as bad as she felt, but Mary just laughed.

The elder woman was the only friend Kara had now; her only friend for almost three years.

"You know, you don't have to tend to the animals when it's raining; I can send Joe out there instead," Mary explained, referring to her teenage son.

Kara shook her head, not realizing it was making water fly everywhere. "No, it's okay. I missed the rain so much and for so long, that I don't mind it now."

Mary nodded and threw Kara a towel from the laundry room. "That's fine; just make sure you dry yourself before I make you mop the whole kitchen!"

Kara laughed and did as told until a small body lurched itself at her leg and latching on.

"Mommy!" Aria screamed against Kara's damp jeans, and Kara bent down to pick the toddler up.

"Hey there. How's my little nugget?"

Aria giggled, her bright blue eyes sparkling and her rosy cheeks showing her dimples. "I'm not a nug-it," the little girl replied, still unable to pronounce the word correctly.

"Nugget," Kara repeated, before continuing, "and what did you do while I was taking care of the horses?"

"I pwayed with Joe and Jess," she explained, and Kara couldn't help but realized once again that Aria, although still young, already preferred spending time with Mary's sons than daughter. Luckily the teenage boys were accepting of the toddler and allowed her to tag along with them; in fact they were better at babysitting than Mary's eldest daughter Lisa.

Kara sent a silent thank you to Mary before heading to the upstairs bathroom that only she and Aria used. She'd been meaning to take a shower herself to wash away the mud, but after Aria had attached herself to her mother's leg, she was just as dirty and Kara realized she was going to have to wash her toddler as well.

The two were almost to the top of the stairs before Kara heard Mary shouting from the kitchen, "You might want to hurry up there, because the television is airing a bunch of specials about the Survivors!"

After so many years using communal bathrooms in the Fleet, Kara was happy to realize that desertion hadn't made her forget how to take quick showers.

♣ **_Three Years Before_**♣

_"I guess it's just you and me," she echoed her own words from years before._

And then she was drifting towards him like a shiny viper after a Cylon EM pulse. His lips tasted of sweat, but his mouth tasted like Lee—that taste she'd grown addicted to over the past few years.

Her fingers let go of his so they could help him out of his flight suit. When it was off, he pulled her to him, and she could feel every muscle in his body screaming for her; the desperation was familiar because it was also her own, and she moaned in relief as his lips found her neck.

His uninjured hand tried to unbutton her pants with no success, so she moved her own hands to assist him, stopping to quickly kick off her boots. She pulled back from him as she stepped out of her pants, feeling immediately drawn back to him but she resisted long enough to throw one of her boots outside the hatch.

Lee had followed her, and as soon as the hatch was closed, he was pressed into her back, pushing her against the metal door. The hand that was wrapped pressed against her stomach, increasing the contact of his erection against her ass, drawing a moan from both of them.

Teeth gently scrapped against her bare shoulder and then her earlobe, and she almost came right then. His torso pulled away from hers, hips still connected intimately through layers of clothing, and his good hand tugged at her top. She realized what he wanted and pulled the remaining tank and her bra off at once. Both his hands moved to cup her breasts, the fabric of his makeshift bandage feeling strange even though it was her own shirt. She knew his hand was probably hurting like a motherfrakker, but he didn't seem to care so she tried not to.

She'd missed this for so long, that she didn't care if he frakked her on the table or against the hatch door; Lee had to be the one to move them toward the bunks until they found hers. Both stood next to the entrance to her bed and they finished disrobing; the two were mere inches apart, eyes roaming the expanse of familiar skin.

They slid into the cramped bunk together, rubbing against each other more than necessary as they held each other's gaze. She couldn't breathe or blink until he was completely inside her; when she finally took a breath, his mouth was covering hers and his tongue had already tangled with her own. She was pretty sure that breathing whatever air he was exhaling was not giving her enough oxygen because she felt lightheaded, but she couldn't bring herself to break their kiss, not with the way he was expertly nibbling on her lower lip, or the way he was completely still inside of her.

When Lee finally pulled back, she felt a tear slide down her face and she didn't even remember it forming. She took a deep breath, feeling him twitch inside of her as her chest rose with much needed air. "Gods, Lee," she moaned as she exhaled, and he smiled a sad smile at her, his good hand reaching up and wiping the trail of her single tear.

It felt like forever had passed before he finally began to pull out of her body; she felt another tear begin to form as she clutched to him, only to realize he'd had every intention of re-entering her. He moaned and she felt a sense of pride wash over her, knowing that she affected him just as much as he affected her. His lips touched every inch of her face while he continued his slow thrusts; she had never been one to appreciate tender sex, and this time her orgasm took her by surprise. It was like a neverending wave of bliss, washing over her time and time again and taking with it all her fears and insecurities.

Lee was apparently as surprised as she was by her climax because he was unable to hold his own. He collapsed next to her and she turned to face the curtain of her bunk, allowing him to mold himself to her back.

"Tell me about Earth, Lee," she whispered as she fought sleep.

"I didn't see all of it," he teased, lips right against her ear. "But what I saw… it's gorgeous. Like Caprica during Harvest time, and there's rain. And food that doesn't taste like processed algae."

She laughed, feeling lighter than she'd felt in months—years, even. "What are we going to do?"

His arm was draped over her waist, fingers tracing lazy circles against her stomach. "We're going to convince them we're not a threat, Kara."

"And then what, Lee?" She didn't want to sound so needy, but ever since she'd returned from the dead, she'd been the one people had turned to for answers. It felt good to be the one asking questions. She didn't ask about where Dee or Sam fit in because they didn't—this was Lee's dream world, and she wasn't going to bring their estranged spouses into it.

"And then you and I are going to find ourselves a nice house. And we're going to live happily ever—" he couldn't finish the sentence because her elbow had jabbed him in the ribs and both broke out in laughter. "Come on, Kara. Close your eyes and imagine it!"

She shook her head against her pillow but did as he asked.

"Imagine a nice house… three bedrooms, two bathrooms. Somewhere where Dad can come over for dinner, and with a playground so we can babysit Hera."

"Us? Babysit?" she asked, unable to stop herself from laughing.

"What do you call being a CAG? It's just like babysitting," Lee retorted and she was able to control her laughter again.

"Okay, tell me more," she begged.

"And then, when it rains…" his voice trailed off into a very dangerous low timbre that went straight to her core.

"When it rains…?" she asked, her question cut short as she felt his renewed erection begging for entrance.

"When it rains, I'll take you outside and do this," he explained as he entered her.

"I—," she stuttered, "I hope it rains a lot."

Lee laughed against the skin of her back. "Me too, Kara, me too."

Kara stood watch as he slept, her somnolence from before replaced by the many anxieties that Lee's view of their future created. It was New Caprica all over again, and a tear slid down her face as she realized no matter what she did, there was no way she would ever live to the expectations of the Adama men.

Her hands wiped her eyes as she silently slid out of her bunk. Kara allowed herself one last glance at Lee before she got dressed and did what she did best.

She ran.


	4. Chapter 03

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Chapter 3

Lee dismissed his new class of pilots, thanking the gods for small miracles. His hangover was worse than usual, and the class seemed to be extremely loud and annoying—although there was a definite possibility that both problems were directly linked.

The Air Force Academy was somewhat close to the Peterson Air Force Base where a lot of the Galactica crew was still living—some by choice, others because they weren't allowed to leave. Any Cylon model, proven ally or not, was to be confined to the Air Force Base at all times, although over the past three years they were given an increasing amount of liberty.

Helo and Athena, however, had decided to stay aboard the Galactica. Lee couldn't blame them, seeing as Earth had been slow in acceptance of the Survivors. Acceptance of the Cylon models, if it came, would probably take decades. In the meantime, the Agathons made sure the Galactica was ready to deal with any threats to Earth.

If they thought quarantine was a difficult period, they were surprised to find that life outside confined quarters was much more difficult. Jobs were hard to get, and freedom felt more constrictive than anyone had ever thought possible. It was easier to bitch about having to eat algae every day than worry about how you were going to be able to afford food on Earth. That was probably why almost the entire Galactica crew chose to stay and work for the military, since it was an easier transition than civilian life on Earth.

Lee had left the base after the first year, unable to deal with seeing familiar faces everyday but unable to see the one he missed the most. He'd used his rent vouchers to get a place closer to the Academy, and gotten a job with the Air Force. Others had done the same, and some had moved to other cities or countries that were more similar to their home colonies than Colorado Springs.

Lee was putting away his laptop, ready to go ask one of the airmen where the nearest bar was when he ran into the person he'd least expected to see.

"Anders," Lee spit out, almost dropping his briefcase to the ground.

"What's up?" The Cylon asked nonchalantly, as if this weren't the Air Force Academy, but the mess aboard the Galactica.

"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be on Peterson?"

"They sent me here to talk to some guys about Cylon Guerilla Tactics; Tigh and I drew straws since Athena's off-world… I lost."

Lee was surprised to feel almost relieved to see Anders. He'd expected everything from jealousy to disdain, but seeing Anders off-base meant Earth was learning about Cylons what had taken the Fleet years to learn.

"Don't worry, they've got their eyes on me," Sam explained as he lifted the leg of his pants to show a device around his calf. "Anyway, I have to go to this meeting."

Lee nodded, "Yeah, definitely. Hey, if you see the Chief or Tigh or anyone else, tell them I said hi," he requested.

"Sure," Anders agreed and started to walk away, before stopping and turning towards Lee. "Hey, have you seen her?"

Lee didn't need to ask who Anders meant, and shook his head. "Not since before the quarantine. You?"

Anders shook his head as well. "Same," he replied as he pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. "You still looking?"

Lee sighed. "Not lately."

"That's Kara for you, man," Anders replied with a sad smile.

Lee couldn't help but nod. He'd known Starbuck for a long time, and he knew there were many across the twelve colonies whose hearts had been broken by Kara Thrace; but the group of men who had been loved by her was a much more exclusive club, and Lee knew the man in front of him, Cylon or not, was one of the few left who knew the agony he was going through. Without thinking too much, Lee reached into his wallet and pulled out one of his business cards, handing it to the other man. "That's my number; if you have free time off-base, give me a call and we'll go have a beer."

Anders held the card between his fingers, staring at it blankly for several seconds before nodding. Then he walked away, disappearing in the hallways of the Academy while Lee stood alone, trying to forget the tattoo on the Cylon's arm and the other tattoo that completed it.

♣ **_Three Years Before_**♣

"Dad!" Lee screamed as the crew of the Galactica lined up to enter the raptors that would take them to Earth. "Have you seen Kara?"

Adama shook his head, "No, I would check with the Chief."

Lee felt like he was swimming against the tide as he pushed past people who were going in the opposite direction. He felt his heart beating fast against his chest, fear rising to his throat and he was afraid he was going to throw up. He never realized how many people were aboard the Galactica until this moment as he passed every single one of them, searching the crowd for Tyrol or Cally.

It wasn't until he reached the armory that he found them, watching as Cally clutched to her toddler son, wiping tears from her eyes. Lee felt guilty about interrupting their moment, his brain just now realizing that they still didn't know what would happen to Tyrol on Earth, what would happen to their family.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Chief, but I'm looking for Starbuck. Have you seen her?"

The Chief nodded, reaching for his log. "Yeah, she took out her viper at 0300, sir. Said she was going on a last CAP run by herself, for old time's sake. She hasn't returned, sir."

Lee felt his blood chill as realization hit. He left the distressed family alone once again as he ran towards the CIC. Small miracles did happen, because the place was empty except for Tigh.

"Colonel, got Starbuck on Dradis?"

The older man shook his head. "She's probably on a raptor already, son. Most people couldn't wait to be out of this old bucket."

Lee was shaking as he reached for the radio, "Starbuck, this is Apollo, do you read me?"

Nothing but static answered his question.

"Kara, please answer," he begged, not caring that every pilot in the fleet could hear him now.

He called for her on every frequency known to the fleet, but every time he got the same response.


	5. Chapter 04

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Chapter 4

Aria was whining as Kara attempted to run a brush through the girl's tangled hair. "Owie!" she complained, and Kara rolled her eyes because she knew her daughter's threshold for pain was much higher and the only reason she was whining was because she was past her bedtime.

"I thought you wanted to stay up and watch TV," Kara said with a fake sigh. "But if you're so whiney, I think it's time to go to sleep."

"No, momma," Aria begged.

Kara glanced at the grandfather's clock in Mary's living room and figured there was no harm in letting Aria stay up for another hour, especially if it meant the two of them could sleep in the next day. "Fine, but I have to finish brushing your hair and braiding it, otherwise we'll have to do all of this again in the morning," Kara explained, and Aria nodded.

The blonde hair was so thin and grew so fast; Kara had never been able to get it cut, so at twenty-nine-months, Aria's hair was two inches below her shoulders, even with the curls.

The television was showing yet another special about the Survivors; this time of year it seemed like the entire programming was dedicated to the fleet. Kara thanked the gods as a really bad made-for-tv movie about the Galactica ended; she definitely preferred the documentaries to the movies and miniseries. A documentary on the life of Admiral William 'Husker' Adama started, and Kara smiled as she reached for the remote, making sure to record this one.

"It's Pops!" Aria yelled, leaving Kara's lap mid-braiding and reaching for the TV screen. Kara felt guilty, because the only times Aria knew the rest of her family was through a television screen or pictures in magazines. When Aria was one, Kara had debated whether or not to tell the truth to her daughter, but Mary had insisted that the girl was already lacking enough in life, she should at least know these people anyway she could.

"Yup, Nugget, it's Pop. Now get your butt over here," Kara threatened and Aria pouted but did as told. As far as Kara knew, the documentary was quite accurate about Bill Adama's first years; they had no footage from the colonies, and very few pictures that had survived, so the majority of the documentary was Survivors telling stories. Kara saw Tigh, Tyrol, and the President of the Colonies – although Laura's title was more of a formality than a job at the moment--, and so many familiar faces. A film crew had apparently been allowed aboard the Galactica and even interviewed Athena and Helo, and Kara bit back tears at seeing her friends. Anastasia Dualla, was also interviewed, and the caption under her name stated she was still stationed aboard the Galactica. Kara muted the TV while she was on, focusing on her daughter's hair and ignoring the tightening in her stomach at the memories.

"Ma! Daddy!" Aria pointed and Kara forced herself to look up, unmuting the TV and watching as Lee walked from his car to a building, ignoring a reporter's questions.

_"His son, Lee Adama, has recently started a job at the U.S.AirForceAcademy, in Colorado. Unfortunately, he declined our requests for an interview."_

Kara sighed, and rewound the digital recording, watching the short clip again and again, unable to stop the tears from flowing. He looked so—sad. And so much older, like Earth had aged him an entire decade. _Colorado_, her mind repeated, Air Force Academy… he was doing what she'd once told him she would do. Her daughter turned around in her lap, reaching up and kissing Kara's tears. "Don't cwy, mommy."

Kara clutched to her daughter as she cried harder, "Crying sometimes feels good, baby. Sometimes it's the only thing you can do to feel okay," she tried to explain even though she was miles from 'okay.'

That night, after she tucked her daughter in, she reached for the phone and dialed 411.

_"Directory Assistance, what city and state?"_

Kara cleared her throat. "Uh, Colorado. Not sure what city."

_"What listing?"_

"Adama… Lee Adama," her voice was shaking and her fingers felt numb.

_"Please hold while we connect your call," _said the almost robotic voice.

Kara heard two rings before the sleepy voice she would recognize anywhere answered. "Hello?... hello? Who's there?... It's one a.m., for frak's sake, who's calling?"

Her entire body was shaking as she clicked the button that ended the call.

What had she been thinking? She couldn't do this, she couldn't talk to him.

He would never forgive her.

♣ **_Three Years Before_**♣

"Where am I?" Kara asked as she came to.

"You tell me, considering I found you passed out on my backyard," an older woman spoke from the side of her bed.

_Earth_, Kara remember. They'd found Earth.

She'd ran. Taken her viper and ran as fast as the engines would take her.

"My viper," Kara tried to speak but it made her headache worse.

"Is that what you call those things? Looked like one of them test planes my late husband used to talk about," the woman mentioned as she handed Kara two pills and a glass of water. "Here, take some Ibuprofen, it'll help with the headache. I was a nurse with the 78th Infantry during Desert Storm. I might be retired, but I know a concussion when I see one."

Kara frowned, but did as told. "Where's my viper?"

"I told my kids to hide it in the stables. We don't need any reporters showing up around here asking questions," the woman explained, before shaking her head, "but if you ask me, that thing won't be flying again. You crashed it pretty bad, it's a wonder you're alive."

Kara couldn't help the snort that escaped her. If this lady only knew the beginning.

"You're one of them, aren't ya?" there was no accusation in her tone, but Kara stood still. "One of them survivors… you're all the TV and radio talk about. Are you human?"

Kara nodded.

"Good. I imagine you were trying to escape quarantine," the woman deduced.

Kara nodded again, because escaping quarantine was part of the reason why she'd left. She wasn't unwilling to discuss the other reason.

"Can't blame ya. By the way, I'm Mary. I own this land, and you're welcome here as long as you don't cause any trouble."

Kara was speechless, wondering if she was really alive or if this was a dream. "Thanks," she finally said and watched as the woman—Mary, got up.

"I've got things to do, so Lisa here will sit with you in case you need anything," Mary explained as a brown-haired girl of nine or ten entered the room. "And I don't want to hear about you trying to get up or move around."

Kara nodded, realizing that Mary reminded her of a gentler Cottle. She closed her eyes, telling herself she was just going to rest them for a minute, but soon she was asleep again.


	6. Chapter 05

**Thanks to everyone who's put me on their alert list; if you haven't noticed yet, I'm kind of a fandom-hopper and have written for many fandoms, so I recommend keeping me on just "story alert" instead of "author alert" if you don't want to get spammed with Story Alerts for stories I write for other show. Also, thank you all for the fantastic feedback!**

**Now with the story:**

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Chapter 5

The phone rang and Lee put the bottle down, as he clumsily reached for handset. "Listen, if you don't stop--," he started to scream into the receiver before he was cut off.

"Lee?" The familiar voice asked, able to sound concerned and pissed off at the same time.

"Dad?!" Lee asked, surprised. He sat up a little straighter, even though his father couldn't actually see him. "I'm sorry, but someone keeps calling day and night and then they hang up. Thought it was them again," he explained.

"Do you think it's someone at the C.A.S.?" his father asked, referring to the Coalition Against the Survivors, which was not the only organization that wasn't pleased with the arrival of the fleet, but they tended to be the most boisterous.

"Maybe," Lee replied.

"I called because…" his father started to say before taking a deep breath. He was silent for a few seconds before continuing, "I was wondering if you'd like to come spend some time with the old man, son," his father explained. "New York is a great city, and a lot of people at the United Nations would like to meet you."

Lee held back the urge to laugh, figuring his father wouldn't appreciate it. "I can't, Dad. I just started with a new class, I have to be here for the next nine weeks," he started to explain, cutting himself off before adding 'and I'm currently enjoying some self-destruction through alcohol. I should give Tigh a call, I think I can finally bond with him.'

"That's what I figured, but Laura insisted it was worth checking," Adama confessed.

This time Lee allowed himself to laugh. "How is she doing?"

"She's good. She's busy," he continued, before admitting, "she's bored. She has meetings in New York, and D.C., and London, and Tokyo, but she says she misses the old days."

"I know what you mean," Lee agreed. "Have you heard from Helo?"

"Yes, matter of fact I just spoke to him. Laura is pulling some strings, trying to get the authorities to waive the obligatory incarceration for Athena for a weekend so they can come spend Christmas here. We're counting on your presence as well," Bill added.

"We'll talk about that later," Lee replied, knowing Christmas was at least four months away, plus he hadn't allowed himself to take part in most Earth festivities and holidays yet. It still felt too foreign to him, but maybe it was because he had no one to celebrate with, he realized sadly.

"I worry about you, Lee," Adama admitted.

Lee's breath caught in his throat as his father's words registered. It was so uncommon for his father to show emotion, even more uncommon for his father to say such things; this caught Lee off-guard, and he replied the only way he could. "I'm sorry, Dad."

"Nothing to be sorry about, son. I'll talk to you later."

With that, his father was gone, and Lee sat in the dark, listening to the errant dial tone coming from the phone.

He couldn't drink again for an entire week.

♣ **_Three Years Before_**♣

Lee sat in his cell—everyone else called them 'quarters' but he called them what they really were: cells. To hold people that couldn't yet be trusted.

He couldn't blame them, but he never thought he'd miss the bunks of the Galactica's Senior Pilot Barracks.

The cell doors were left open, and the fleet—Survivors as they were being called, were free to mingle around the complex, but Lee had no desire to mingle.

Earth officials were currently going through the Galactica's logs and what was left of the Pegasus' records. Lee wished he'd stayed up in Galactica with Helo, but he had told himself that there was nothing left on the Galactica for him; at least Earth was new.

He'd had a plan; build the house he'd told Kara about… the one with the backyard, and the bedrooms and bathrooms and big kitchen even though neither of them cooked. Those scenarios played around in his head, dreams haunting him with impossible futures; he'd get everything ready, and when he found her, she would be so flabbergasted she would agree to live with him. Maybe she'd even agree to marry him. In one version of his dream, they had two dogs and a cat named Viper.

He bitterly laughed at himself and his naïve plan; this was Kara—he shouldn't be surprised, he shouldn't be hurt. She did what she had done her entire life; she ran from him. And if he thought it hurt to watch her smile in New Caprica after her impromptu wedding to Anders… he'd been so wrong, because at least then he knew where she was. He could still see her, even if she belonged to another man. This was worse, the not knowing.

It still didn't stop the dreams about the frakking house or the stupid pets. It certainly didn't stop him from signing those divorce papers the moment he'd stepped on Earth.

It was kind of poetic… The first time they'd found a home, he'd frakked Kara and proposed to Dee. The second time they'd found a home, he'd frakked Kara and divorced Dee.

"You should get up and around," someone told him from the open door to his cell.

Lee turned to see Anders standing there, with a soft smile on his face.

"There's a window at the end of the hallway; you can see it as planes take off and land. It's so different from Vipers and Raptors. She would've loved it."

Lee shook his head, shoving the blood-stained tank top that he'd saved under his pillow before Anders could see it. "How can you be okay with her leaving?" Lee asked, the idea that the first person he had exchanged words with in days was Sam Anders.

"How can you not?" Anders retorted.

Lee didn't want to talk about how the night before she left, he'd promised her a life on Earth, how he'd held her in his arms and made love to her several times. It didn't matter, though, because from the look on Sam's face, he knew.

"She'll come back," Anders added. "She always does."

Lee shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant as he replied, "This time it's different."

Anders nodded and walked away.

Lee didn't speak to anyone again for another six days, when he finally made his way to the window at the end of the hallway. He watched as unfamiliar planes took off and landed, over and over again.

He stood there and watched until the sun set. He never dreamed of the house he'd share with Kara again.

* * *


	7. Chapter 06

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Chapter 6

Kara felt guilty as Mary handed her a handful of cash. Mary always insisted that the farm had been making more money ever since Kara had started to help, and Mary always insisted on paying Kara money every month.

Mary insisted the money wasn't for Kara, but for Aria's future. So as Mary dropped Kara and Aria off at the local family doctor's office, she insisted on paying for the bill, refusing to let Kara use her own money.

"Kara, I don't wanna hear it. She needs her shots, and as your employer, I'm responsible for any expenses related to your health or your dependents'. So take the money, and if the bill is more than what I gave ya, tell Dr. Ericson to send me a bill."

Kara finally pocketed the money and nodded, then moved to the back of the SUV to unbuckle Aria from her car seat.

"I'm gonna go do some shopping, if I'm not here when ya get out, meet me at the store."

"Ok. Thanks, Mary," Kara said as she shut the door.

"Bye, Mawy!" Aria shouted, waving both hands at their friend, who drove away.

Kara always felt anxious whenever she was alone in town. The population of Darby, Montana, was under 900; less than half of that during winter months. And yet, Kara was always worried someone would recognize her.

It was late August and the wind was chilly already, but it was nothing compared to the winter of New Caprica that Kara had endured. She fixed Aria's jacket as they walked to the doctor's office.

The front desk lady handed Kara the forms she had to fill out and told her it would be a couple minutes. Kara helped Aria out of her jacket and let the girl roam the small waiting room as she filled out the paperwork; most of her information was still the same, so it didn't take long.

"Look, mommy, it's the Pwesident and Pops!" Aria announced from across the room where a television sat. Kara felt the blood drain from her face, but no one around seemed to notice or care, so she just got up and reached for Aria, changing the channel from CNN to PBS where a blue dog seemed entertaining. Aria frowned but soon became entranced with the cartoon, and forgot about her grandfather.

"Aris… Aries...?" Someone tried to pronounce and Kara stood up with Aria.

"Aristaeia Thrace," Kara corrected the woman politely. "But we call her Aria," she explained.

"Sorry, I'm new here," the young nurse offered as explanation. "We need to weigh her and get some information for her chart before Dr. Ericson sees her."

Kara nodded and followed the nurse through the familiar office. Aria behaved through all the procedures, and it wasn't until the doctor entered the room that she ran to Kara and clutched for dear life.

"Oh, come on, Aria," Dr. Ericson pleaded. "I thought we were friends," he added softly before he winked at Kara.

Kara smiled politely; she knew the town's only doctor was divorced and he had always flirted with her whenever possible, but she'd turned down his one dinner request. He hadn't tried to ask her out again, which was a relief. He was attractive, and years before Kara probably wouldn't have thought twice before accepting, but Aria had changed her.

Aria finally released Kara's leg at the promise of a lollipop. Once she'd accepted the candy, the toddler didn't even notice the needle that was pushed into her arm.

Kara smiled one last time at the friendly doctor as she carried Aria out of the room, trying to imagine how her life would be if her daughter hadn't been born; Kara gave up because a life without Aria was just not worth living.

♣ **_Two Years and Ten Month Before_**♣

Mary sat with Kara as they waited for the plastic test to reveal Kara's destiny. It didn't even take the advertised ninety-seconds before the second pink line appeared, brightly announced that Kara Thrace, once again, had beaten all frakkin' odds.

She was pregnant.

She threw up for the third time that day, except this time it was from nerves and not morning sickness.

Mary stroked her back as she cried into the toilet, fear setting in as the truth revealed itself. "It can't be," she finally said as Mary handed her a wet washcloth. Kara wiped her mouth and got up to brush her teeth, staring at her tear-stained eyes in the mirror.

"I've been through this three times myself," Mary replied. "I told ya that's what's been causing you to turn green at the sight of milk."

Kara shook her head. "You don't understand," she told Mary. "I'm not supposed to be able to have kids… I only have one ovary, and—I've had bad things happen to me," she finally confessed.

Mary pulled her into a hug. "All you need is one ovary. It doesn't even need to work well, it just needs to work…"

She let herself be hugged, realizing Mary was the only woman in her life who had ever hugged Kara and meant it.

"What are you going to do?" Mary asked, her voice free of accusation and making it clear that she would support Kara no matter what.

But Kara had no idea what she wanted; if she were still in the fleet, there would be no options. But she wasn't part of the fleet anymore; she was just a young woman living in a farm, herding cows, breaking in wildhorses, and feeding pigs. That had been her life for the past two months, and she liked it; she wasn't sure how a child fit in. She'd never been able to picture herself as a mother; viper pilots make bad mothers, she'd told herself her entire life… but she wasn't a viper pilot anymore.

Her stomach clenched again as she realized she was carrying Lee's child-- Zak's nephew or niece, Bill Adama's grandchild; only grandchild, as far as she knew. Could she give that up? She'd walked away on Lee because his expectations of the future had been too much for her to handle… and now she found out she was pregnant with his child. It seemed like fate was playing tricks with her once again, and Kara couldn't do anything but close her eyes and let Mary stroke her hair.


	8. Chapter 07

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Chapter 7

Lee gripped the rectangular piece of paper within his fingers until his knuckles turned white.

"What do you want me to do, Anders?" Lee asked through gritted teeth.

"What I _want_ you to do? I want to you to do the same as me: nothing. But I figured if I can't go to her," Sam said, pointing to the electronic device around his leg, "someone should. Might as well be you, Adama."

"How did you find her?" Lee asked as he took a sip of beer, the taste making his stomach churn.

"I looked," Sam replied simply and Lee could detect the accusation in the other man's voice.

"You're not telling me everything, are you, Anders?"

The other man didn't say anything, just took a sip of his own beer.

"What's in Darby, frakkin' Montana?"

Anders laughed, turning to stare at Lee disbelievingly. "You mean other than my ex-wife and the woman you've been in love with for what? Ten years? Fifteen?"

Lee allowed himself to smirk. "That's none of your godsdamned business, Anders," he replied, chancing another sip of beer.

"Didn't think so, mighty Apollo," Anders laughed again, both men coming to terms with the surrealism of their situation.

They sat in comfortable silence for several minutes until Anders started to beep.

"Sorry, gotta go. Curfew," Anders explained as he pulled out his wallet. Lee stopped him.

"I got it," Lee said, reaching for both their tabs and setting down a twenty-dollar bill on the counter to pay for both their unfinished beers. "Come on, I'll drop you off at the base," he offered.

Lee put the Montana address in his back-pocket, unsure of what he was going to do with it.

♣ **_Two Years and Ten Months Before_**♣

Lee was in the makeshift cafeteria eating when his father found him and sat down across from him; his presence was enough to startle Lee, having seen little of his father in the six weeks of their confinement, but it was the fact that his father was wearing civilian clothes that startled Lee the most.

"Dad?!" Lee said, almost choking on his dinner.

"Son," Adama replied with a smirk.

"Where's your uniform? Your tags?"

"I retired, Lee," Adama explained, looking like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. "The fleet doesn't need me anymore. The President and I discussed this, and she's assigned Helo as temporary commander, and she plans on making the promotion official as soon as the dust settles."

"I don't understand, Dad," Lee started to say. "When we found New Caprica--"

His father cut him off. "When we found New Caprica, things were different. It wasn't Earth, and I, once again, put my duty above my own personal feelings. This is Earth, Lee… and I won't make the same mistake again," Adama explained. "I would've promoted you, but that would force you to make the same decisions I've made all these years, and I won't allow that. Karl's destiny and his family are up there, son. Yours aren't."

Lee was speechless.

Adama stood up, glancing at his watch. "I'm moving to New York," he announced and Lee knew exactly what, or more precisely who, would soon also be in New York. "You'll always be welcome there if you decide to leave this place."

And with that, Former Admiral Adama left Peterson Air Force Base to live his life as a civilian for the first time in decades.


	9. Chapter 08

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Chapter 8

Kara loved horseback riding; it was the only part of her new life that reminded her of flying. She felt so free, as she galloped around the twelve-hundred-acre property, making sure that everything was in place.

She always stopped at the same spot every day, staring at one of the creeks formed by Bitterrool River a few miles ahead. She rode her favorite horse, Flyboy, down the usual path, back to where the creek formed a beautiful pond.

Kara had started naming every wild horse that she'd tamed after dead Galactica pilots; Mary hadn't complained, so she had continued.

The pond was as peaceful as ever, and she stood there for several minutes, trying to convince herself that the reason she loved this part of Mary's property had nothing to do with the fact that it reminded her of her patch of land in New Caprica.

Kara began the trek back, and Flyboy complained at having to return so soon; she could sympathize—it seemed like she would be happy to spend all day by the creek without tiring of it--, except Kara was eager to return before Aria woke up from her nap.

She returned to the corral and fed the horses, spending extra time around the newest mare, a purebred that was more stubborn than a mule. She wasn't broken in yet, but Kara was pretty sure she was going to name the mare Kat, because the resemblance was striking.

The sun was just starting to set as she entered the house, walking into the kitchen as Aria descended the stairs. She'd been told not to go near the stairs, and they'd put a gate near the top, but Aria was more stubborn than any of the wild horses and had not only learned to move the gate, but also to descend the stairs by crouching, sitting, and sliding down to the next step, over and over until she reached the bottom.

Kara picked up the toddler, swinging her up and down before setting her on her hip and entering the kitchen.

Mary was making spaghetti, Kara and Aria's favorite. "Yummy!" Aria spoke, pleased, and Kara nodded, smiling wide at her daughter.

"The kids are setting the table," Mary explained, "do ya mind getting the bread out of the oven?"

Kara shook her head, one-handedly retrieving the tray out of the oven with the assistance of a mitten and placing it on the sink. Kara picked up one of the slices, biting into it and moaning as the garlic buttery bread melted in her mouth.

"Me, mommy, me!" Aria insisted and Kara instructed her daughter to blow on the toast so she wouldn't burn her mouth before allowing the toddler to take a bite. Aria's reaction was an exact mirror of her own, and Mary ushered them out of the kitchen, complaining they were going to ruin their appetite.

Kara entered the dining room, watching as the three teenagers finished setting the table. It took her a long time to feel at home in Mary's farmhouse, but now this was as familiar to Kara as the mess aboard Galactica.

"How did you do on your math test, Jess?" Kara asked as the boy took his seat. Kara walked past him and teased the boy by ruffling his hair.

"It blew," the boy complained, fixing his hair. "What kind of teacher gives a math test two weeks into the semester?"

Kara shrugged. "That's why I dropped out," she offered and heard Mary's voice carrying from the kitchen.

"Kara!"

"Just kidding," she replied, loud enough so Mary could hear before turning to Jess and winking conspiratorially.

Kara was heading to the closet to get Aria's booster seat out when the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it! It's probably Erica," she shouted to Mary. Kara glanced at the clock, figuring this was pretty late for a mail delivery, but their postal worker was known for her inconsistency.

Kara opened the door, Aria still on her hip, and nothing could've prepared her to find herself face-to-face with the man she'd been trying to forget for the past three years.

♣ **_Two Years and Three Months Before_**♣

Kara's entire stomach contracted as she coughed. She pulled another blanket over herself, but she could only reach so far with her expanded stomach in the way. She sighed with relief as she saw Mary enter the room with a tray.

"Oh my god, Kara! What did I tell you about going outside in this weather?" Mary admonished her but Kara's intention of replying was interrupted by another coughing fit. Mary shook her head as she set the tray down and pulled more covers on top of Kara.

Kara's consciousness started to drift away again; it was like she was really tired and couldn't hold her eyes open, except when she closed her eyes, they burned really bad.

"I've called Dr. Ericson," Mary said, and Kara's eyes opened again as she shook her head.

"No doctors, you promised," Kara begged and was cut off as Mary placed a thermometer in her mouth.

"Yes, I promised before you went out there to calm down those stubborn horses in the middle of a snowstorm. It's February in freaking Montana, you can't just go outside when it's ten below zero, especially not when you're eight and a half months pregnant," Mary replied, visibly upset at Kara.

Kara tried to bite her lip but the damn thermometer was in the way. Her eyes felt heavy again and she closed them for what felt like a minute but it must've been longer, because when she reopened them, Dr. Ericson was there.

"Kara?" He asked as he sat on a chair by her bed that hadn't been there before.

"The baby," was Kara's only reply.

"The baby should be okay, but you have pneumonia and you're running a fever of one-hundred-and-three. We need to get it down before it hurts the baby, okay? As long as we get you treated now, the baby will be fine."

His words barely registered, but she heard enough to quickly nod. The skin of her arm felt really cold, followed by a sharp pain.

She closed her eyes again, and when she opened them, she saw Zak sitting on the chair by the bed, and he was in full uniform.

_"Always your way," he said before her graced her with his perfect smile. He grabbed her hand, and she looked down to see that her stomach was flat; the mirror on the wall showed that her hair was short again—Academy-short, and she didn't know what was wrong, but she knew this was Zak. He wouldn't leave her, not again. She followed him out into the streets of Delphi, and her face broke into a wide smile as she saw he was leading her to her favorite resta--_

Kara's eyes snapped open as her stomach contracted. The chair by the bed was empty, but Kara could hear Dr. Ericson and Mary outside her door.

Kara knew her fever must've gone down, because the blankets above her felt stifling instead of comforting. She tried to sit up, but her entire lower half suddenly went numb, followed by a feeling of dampness. "Mary!" Kara shouted as she unsuccessfully tried to push the blankets off her body with just her hand.

Mary was at her side in one instant and helped her move the mountain of blankets onto the floor. "I think your water just broke, Kara," Mary explained, reaching to adjust the pillows behind Kara.

Dr. Ericson glanced at her for permission before reaching under the thermal shirt she was wearing. Mary helped him remove the damp pajama pants and Kara chewed on her lower lip as she expected their verdict.

"The baby is definitely coming," Dr. Ericson confirmed, then with a tentative smile he continued, "I hope you have a name picked out."

Kara nodded. "Aristaeios."

"Son of Apollo and Kyrene?" The doctor asked, and off her surprised look he added, "I minored in Greek History."

She nodded again.

"And if it's a girl?"

Kara shrugged. "Aristaeia, I guess."

The doctor laughed, "I hope you have good nicknames, 'cause that's gonna be a pain for them to spell out on their first day of class."

_Class? _Kara thought, suddenly feeling anxious; she was freaking out about giving birth and the doctor wanted her to worry about her child's first day of class? She gritted her teeth as another contraction hit her, and as soon as it was over, Mary stuck the thermometer in her mouth again, and Kara waited silently until it beeped.

"Down to ninety-nine," Mary said, and relief was evident in her voice.

The doctor smiled as he patted Kara's hand. "That's low enough, we'll get you on some stronger antibiotics after the baby is born; you should be ready to push in a couple of hours. Do me a favor and rest for now, you'll need your strength for later."

Kara nodded as she started to silently pray to the Gods.


	10. Chapter 09

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Chapter 9

Lee stood there speechless for what felt like hours. He couldn't believe his eyes as his traitorous gaze refused to look away from the eyes of the woman who'd left him three years before.

Her face was pale, but he figured it had more to do with him than malnutrition or lack of exposure to the sun; her eyes were the bright green that only showed when she was extremely happy or sad.

And her hair—he couldn't avoid the sudden urge to reach out and touch the long curls….

… except before he could reach for it, the young girl attached to Kara's hip extended a pointy finger at him, and the word she uttered changed Lee Adama's life forever:

"Daddy!"

Lee's eyes moved from Kara's face and hair to the young girl, and he blinked once.

And he blinked twice.

"Uh… this is Aria," Kara offered as explanation before going silent again.

Then he saw the little girl's mouth—he realized he was looking at a miniature version of the mouth he'd fallen in love with all those years ago, and Lee just stared at the excited toddler.

It couldn't be—

There was no way—

His eyes finally pulled away to search for answers, but Kara's refusal to meet his eyes told him more than her words could have.

"Kara…" he started to say, but he really had no idea what to say; there were so many conflicting emotions within him that he wished he could just pick one and stick with it.

Their uncomfortable silence was interrupted by a brown-haired teenage boy. "Here, let me get her," the boy offered and Kara stole a glance at Lee before handing the toddler to the teenager.

It was her turn to attempt to start a conversation, and Lee held his breath as Kara sighed his name, so softly he barely heard it.

Another person appeared behind Kara, this time a middle-aged brown-haired female who placed her hand on Kara's shoulder. "Kara, sweetheart, you should invite your friend to dinner with us," the woman said pointedly, before turning to Lee. "Hi, I'm Mary, it would be wonderful if you could join us for dinner..." she let her voice trail off before continuing, "you and Kara can talk afterwards. We're having spaghetti and meatballs."

Lee's eyes were glued to Kara, and it wasn't until she finally met his eyes and nodded that he agreed to the woman's invitation.

Lee followed the women into the dining room area, and he gulped down as he took the only open seat on the table, watching as another teenage boy added a plate and silverware in front of Lee.

"Daddy," the toddler in the seat next to him repeated, and Lee glanced at her. Everything inside him felt wrong, but he couldn't help but offer the young girl a smile.

"Hi," he replied, and the girl seemed content for the moment, and she started to dig into her plate of spaghetti with her plastic utensils.

Lee couldn't eat at all as he sat watching the little girl.

His daughter.

♣ **_Two Years and Three Months Before_**♣

Lee glared at the cards in front of him; he'd been making next to nothing working on base, and since he was still living at Peterson, whatever _something_ he was making was being spent on learning the Earth-game poker.

Apparently he was a slow learner, as evidenced by the very small number of chips in front of him.

He accepted another free beer, throwing one of the smaller chips onto the waitress' tray; it was small enough that he knew the smile she gave him had nothing to do with the fact he was a good tipper. He would've returned the smile, except he just couldn't care enough.

His hand was crappy, but he was small blind, so he figured he might as well go all in. He sat there as the rest of the players folded and he collected the slight pot. It was better than nothing, and nothing was what he'd grown accustomed to.

He won a couple of hands, and the small number of chips grew, slowly but steadily, and Lee realized he might be getting the hang of this after all—and he sure didn't mind the free alcohol. He might even make enough money tonight to finally move off-base.

It wasn't until the seat next to him vacated and a middle-aged man with a taste for cigars sat down that Lee was finally able to pull himself away from the table.

As he stumbled to the casino entrance, his mind briefly wondered what Kara was up to; he was drunk enough to smile at the thought that it was very possible she was somewhere, hustling middle-aged men for their retirement money… that was the Starbuck he knew.


	11. Chapter 10

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Chapter 10

Kara ate her dinner just because it gave her something to do.

She avoided looking to her right, where her daughter sat, because every time Kara had done that, she'd seen Lee and his myriad of emotions and it was frakkin' her up.

She could hardly taste the meal she usually loved, although she wanted to draw it out as long as possible. Kara felt guilty, scared, desperate… most of all, she felt uncomfortable, like she'd rather take on a basestar and eighteen raiders than deal with the conversation she was about to have with Lee, as soon as dinner ended.

And there was this tiny, miniscule, part of her that was screaming with relief that Lee had found her—found them. Kara fought back a bitter laugh at the realization that fear had kept her from Lee all these year.

Fear.

She stole a glance at Mary, who was looking at her with those deep, understanding eyes, and it was almost enough to make Kara run. It was all too much to handle…

…except she didn't have the right to run this time. Aria deserved this, and despite the fact that Kara had been too much of a coward to ever tell Lee the truth about the past three years, somehow he'd found them.

_The phone calls!_, she realized with terror, figuring he'd probably traced the calls back to Mary's home.

During her entire stay on Earth, Kara had never decided whether she wanted Lee to never give up on finding her, or for him to move on; either one was too painful to consider.

She felt a tap on her shoulder and looked up to see Mary standing there with four plates already piled up on one hand. Kara piled her half-empty plate on top of the others.

Mary bent closer to Kara's ear, speaking softly, "Joe can give Aria a bath while you two talk."

Kara flashed Mary a thankful smile, except she didn't feel very thankful; she felt terrified. She stayed in her seat, frozen, as she heard Mary communicating a similar message to Lee and Aria, then Aria was taken away by Mary's eldest.

The grandfather clock in the room ticked steadily in the silence they were left in; maybe a minute or thirty passed before Kara worked up the courage to say his name.

"Lee…" she started to say as she turned towards him, realizing too late she hadn't thought of anything else to say.

"Kara," he replied, sounding so broken that Kara had to look away from him for a second.

"I--," she began again, before stopping and taking a deep breath. She stood from the table and glanced at the clock again. "I need to feed the horses… would you—do you want to come with?"

Lee nodded silently, getting up and following her through the kitchen and out the door to the corral and stables.

She'd fed the horses just before dinner, but she hadn't been able to think of anything else to say… she could only hope that the horses had eaten enough so she wouldn't look stupid. There was only another hour at the most of sunlight left in the day, and there was this irrational voice inside her telling her that if she took long enough doing this, Lee would just leave and forget he'd ever been there.

She took her sweet time grabbing a bale of hay, trying to ignore the way Lee's presence, even a few feet away, was making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

He was the one to finally break the silence. "Horses?" he sounded incredulous, and just slightly like the old Lee she knew.

Kara smiled, unable to avoid the smirk on her face as she walked towards the corral. "Yes, horses. That's what I do now, deal with horses… and pigs, and cows, and the occasional goat," she pointed at the tamed horses to the right. "That's Flat Top… the black one is Flyboy, my current favorite. The tan one in the back is Chuckles, because he does this weird thing when he neighs…"

Lee stared at her like she'd grown a second head, before he finally looked away and laughed. "I think I see the resemblance," he regarded when Chuckles neighed.

"I crashed here, three years ago," Kara finally admitted, regretting it the moment she said it because Lee's expression changed immediately. "Mary saved me, hid me. I help her take care of the farm… found out I had a gift to tame wild horses, and I've been doing it ever since. The property's huge, twelve hundred acres… Mary's late husband's family has owned this land for over a century."

Lee reached out and pet Jolly on the head when the horse approached him. "And Aria?"

"Her name is Aristaeia," Kara explained softly. "When I—after I crashed… a couple of months after I crashed, I found out I was pregnant with Aria…"

"The bunkroom?" Lee asked, and Kara's mind flashed back to the two of them, cuddled up in her bunk as Lee told her about his Earth dream.

She nodded, fighting back tears.

"Why--," Lee started to say, "No, how… How could you keep something like this from me, Kara?"

Kara bit her lip, unable to answer.

"I mean, she's mine, right?" Lee asked, even though she'd already answered him in many ways.

"Yes."

"And you've been hiding her, in the middle of frakkin' Montana, without any regard…" he trailed off, anger finally surfacing.

Kara took a deep breath, realizing that many years before she would've had no problems dealing with an angry Lee; in fact, at the time, she'd preferred angry Lee to complacent Lee. But now, it was tearing her apart.

"I thought of you every day, Lee. Every morning, every night. Did you look at Aria? She has your eyes; I couldn't even look at my daughter without thinking of you."

He was suddenly in her personal space, arm tugging on hers to force her to look at him. "Then why, Kara?"

"I don't know, Lee. I don't know why," she told him. It was the truth, but she knew it wouldn't be enough.

"You had no right…" he said and trailed off. He turned from her and placed his arms on the metal enclosure bars of the corral.

"No, I didn't," Kara agreed. "And I knew that, which is why every time I even thought of telling you about Aria, I just couldn't… because I knew I had no right keeping her from you in the first place."

Lee still didn't look happy, but at least he seemed to accept her answer for now. She turned around so that she was leaning against the metal bars next to him. The sun was starting to hide behind the mountains, and she knew it was going to get chilly soon but she couldn't bring herself to move.

"How's your father?" she finally asked, both because she genuinely wanted to know and also because it would move the subject away from how big of a frak-up she was.

"Retired," Lee replied. She didn't say she already knew that from the tidbits she'd read in magazines or seen on TV. "He's living in New York. I haven't seen him in a year and a half… he always tries to get me to go visit him, but I just haven't gotten around to it."

"Everyone else?"

"Anders is good…"

Kara bit her lip, not sure why Lee had jumped to conclusions, "I didn't mean him, Lee," she tried to explain only to be interrupted as Lee laughed softly.

"I know you didn't, Kara, but Anders is the person I bump into the most in Colorado… they're starting to give him and the others a little more freedom. Accepting them," Lee explained.

She wasn't sure how she felt about that, so she just moved on down her list. "Helo?"

"Commander Agathon is great," Lee said with a smirk at referring to Helo by his new rank, "I mostly hear from him through Dad. Last I heard, Sharon's pregnant again."

Kara grinned wide at the news, her eyes still reflecting the sadness of being separated from her friends.

"Tigh's in Colorado, in the same compound as the others, but he mostly keeps to himself these days; Cottle's working on base; and Gaeta was transferred to M.I.T., apparently he's trying to help them with building new F.T.L. drives for Earth ships."

Kara had heard that last bit of information from a special on Baltar, but if Lee wasn't going to bring the traitorous scientist up, she wasn't about to either.

They stood there together until the sun was completely set, talking about their former acquaintances. His elbows had moved as he talked, and the tips of his fingers were brushing against the ends of her hair. She'd pretended it didn't affect her, and had continued talking.

Kara stopped mid-sentence as she saw Joe emerging from the house with Aria; the teenager carried the squirming toddler half-way to them before he gave up and set her on the ground, letting her run on her own.

"Sorry," he told Kara, "but she was getting impatient and throwing tantrums…"

Kara smiled at him, "It's okay, Joey… thanks for watching her this long," she barely saw Joe return to the house because her attention suddenly shifted to Aria running and attaching herself to Lee's leg. "I, uh.." Kara said awkwardly, "she does that a lot. We call them leg-hugs," she tried to explain.

Lee's eyes were wide open and she could tell he wasn't sure what to do. Kara was about to move and pick Aria up, when Lee finally pulled Aria away from his leg. He pulled the toddler up with ease, settling her too high up on his waist to be comfortable. And then Kara's heart stopped as Lee turned to their daughter and spoke a single word: "Hi…"

Aria's hands moved to frame his face as she said hi back. She was too young to realize the importance of the moment; Kara couldn't breathe as she watched her daughter turn in Lee's arms to look at her. "Momma," and then Aria turned back to Lee, "daddy," she added before giggling and settling on his shoulder.

♣ **_Two Years and Three Months Before_**♣

Kara glanced at the bundle in her arms, still in disbelief.

Aria's eyes opened briefly and Kara stared into sharp blue eyes; Mary had said they'd probably change colors but Kara was pretty sure they wouldn't. No, this was already typical Adama-blue.

Kara's fingers reached for the cordless next to the bed, trying not to disturb the peaceful infant in her arms, as she dialed the number that Mary had found on the internet for her.

_"Peterson Air Force Base switchboard, how may I direct your call?"_

"Lee Adama, please," she said, deeply aware of how her voice broke multiple times as she said his name, and it had nothing to do with her almost completely healed pneumonia.

"One second," the woman on the other end of the line said but if felt more like a lifetime to Kara, "I'm sorry, but Mr. Adama is no longer living on-base. He does still have a voicemail box setup, would you like to leave a message?"

Kara swallowed the lump in her throat as she declined and thanked the woman before hanging up.

He was making a life for himself on Earth, and if she hadn't run away, she could be there with him now. He'd moved on, and she should too. She already had, in many ways, with her new life, on a farm in Montana. Except, unlike Lee, she would have to look at a reminder of them every day; but then Aria cooed in her sleep, and Kara realized she didn't mind that reminder at all.


	12. Chapter 11

**Note: The size of the farm was changed to twelve-hundred acres (from its original twelve). I'm a city girl and had no idea how big 'big farms' are, but the lovely arielmoondance came to my rescue - thank you, ariel!**

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Chapter 11

Lee had woken up that morning with the resolution that he would, after all, seek Kara.

In his mind, the day had played out pretty simple: he had imagined that he would find her, maybe she would be married, engaged, or something else painful… she would be both happy and upset at being found, then they would fight, then she would apologize, and he would leave. If he were lucky, he'd finally be able to move on and forget her.

He had been very, very wrong.

Lee remembered Anders' secretive smirk as he'd handed Lee the information about Kara; the frakkin' Cylon probably knew everything. He was going to kill him for not warning him; and then Lee would find any duplicates and kill them as well.

The wind was starting to blow around them and Lee instinctively wrapped his arms tighter around the toddler in his arm, not realizing what he'd done until after it had happened.

Aria had babbled incoherently at him for several minutes, with Kara translating the occasional word or sentence, and Lee had been unable to do anything but stare at this miniature of Kara with his eyes. After maybe half an hour, Aria had cuddled up closer to his neck and started to snore against his skin.

And now Kara was staring at him with an indecipherable expression. "It's a little early, but I—uh… I should take her to bed," she explained. "Would you… I don't want to move her, would you mind bringing her upstairs to her room?"

Lee shook his head, unwilling to break the contact with the daughter he'd just discovered today.

Yeah, he was definitely going to kill Sam.

Kara led the way back to the house, opening the door for him and showing the way to the stairs by the kitchen. Lee followed her up until they came to three doors at the top of the hallway. Kara carefully opened one of the doors silently and they entered a small room.

Kara walked to the twin bed and pulled back the handmade quilt so Lee could put Aria down. He was afraid, unsure of how to move Aria so she wouldn't wake up. Then Kara was touching him, and he almost startled until he realized she was only pulling Aria off him with the ease of practice. Her touch was gone, and then Aria was gone, and Lee felt very alone for the first time since he'd picked up Aria outside.

"She's usually a pretty heavy sleeper," Kara explained as she covered the toddler up, "and I think today wore her out. I'm pretty sure she'll sleep through the night."

Lee could only stare as she went through the motions, turning on a humidifier in the corner of the room, plugging in a night light, closing the blinds and picking up toys from the floor and placing them on top of a bureau. His mind raced back to his reaction just minutes before when Kara's hands had touched him—his heart had been beating faster ever since, and watching this new Kara doing mundane things was just so unexpected that Lee was starting to feel dizzy.

He wanted to stay mad at her, but his anger came and went, often replaced by thoughts and ideas that Lee was pretty sure were not what he was supposed to be feeling just hours after finding out that Kara had been hiding his daughter from him.

Then again, after watching her come back from the dead and missing so many times, maybe Lee was just learning to take what he could get from Kara.

"There's uh, a guest room downstairs… I can set it up, that way we can talk more tomorrow," Kara said as she closed the door to Aria's room.

The hallway outside the room was small, and Lee couldn't think because Kara was right next to him, or he was right next to her—he wasn't sure, but he was pretty positive this hallway hadn't been this small when he'd been carrying Aria.

Her fingers brushed against him again, and he opened his mouth to accept Kara's guest room, but their lips met instead.

Lee liked her new offer much better.

♣ **_One Year and Eight Months Before_**♣

Lee dropped his keys on the kitchen counter, tiredly staring at his apartment. There were a couple of boxes of things that he'd brought from his room at the Galactica; Dee had kept the room and most of the things in it since he had been so apathetic at the time, but he had taken a few things with him. His father had sent him a few more boxes, most of them with books, photo albums and picture frames, claiming Laura's condo wasn't big enough.

Lee's apartment wasn't big either, but considering he was keeping furniture to a minimum and he lived alone, he'd figured he might as well try to accommodate some of the things his father had sent.

Colorado Springs was under a foot and a half of snow, and his father was threatening a visit soon, so Lee figured he might as well put the boxes' contents away. Even if it meant he would no longer be able to use the boxes as an excuse for a dining table.

Using a kitchen knife as a box opener, Lee started on the first box, setting the books and frames on the floor. He stared at a photo of Zak for a few minutes, missing his brother deeply. It was strange—Lee had many people to miss: almost everyone he knew had been killed the day the Cylons attacked. Yet the people he missed the most were the brother he'd lost years before the war and the woman he'd lost years after.

The woman who had been engaged to his brother; the brother who'd been engaged to the woman he loved. Life could be a real bitch sometimes, no matter what end of the galaxy you found yourself in on any given day; but Lee's life… Lee's life would have to rate pretty high on the frak-up list.

Space was still an issue, so Lee sorted the books in piles: ones he wanted to keep around on display, and others he'd keep in a box in one of the closets. Once he was finished with the boxes and separating the books, Lee finally started on the boxes he'd brought with him from the base. They were smaller but more painful, and he had to take a break after he opened the second box and saw the old dried blood on a tank top.

_Her tank._

He picked the fabric up and brought it to his nose, but it was too old and it'd been in the box too long; it smelled like nothing. Which was fitting, because that's what he usually felt every morning when he woke up alone in his cold apartment. He was long past self-pity, and had even gone past self-destruction; he was at the point where he'd just accepted he was going to live a pretty meaningless existence, living on his own and dreading the occasional visit of the one person he still cared about.

It was the thought of his father's opinion that made Lee get up, and continue to sort through the box, throwing the old tank in the pile with the books that he planned to hide away in a closet.

His dogtags were at the bottom of the box; he hadn't worn them since he'd left the base. Lee glanced at them, remembering the day he got them; remembered throwing his tags in with dozens of others and fighting in a ring as he was continuously haunted by memories of New Caprica.

Lee considered hanging the dogtags, or maybe even framing then, but he realized that dogtags were just as painful as the black scrap of fabric he'd put away. Lee dropped the tags in the same box and taped it back up.


	13. Chapter 12

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Chapter 12

She hadn't meant to, except that he'd been so close to her and the day's events had been so tiresome that she'd decided she wanted to know just one more time what he tasted like.

The answer was still the same; it was still the same Lee.

And then one taste turned into a second kiss, which turned into her hands making sure his body hadn't changed; he was thinner, but still the same Lee.

The door to her room gave under the pressure of their bodies, and they stumbled together to her full-sized bed which was just a few inches off the ground, her mattress complaining about the unusual weight.

They should be talking, she realized… she should be apologizing, he should be angry at her, but instead his lips were traveling down her collarbone and to her breast and she was arching onto him as his erection pressed against her inner thigh.

Clothes piled up on her floor as the mattress springs continued to complain, and Kara was very happy that Mary's room and the kids' were on the other side of the house.

"Gods, Kara," Lee moaned into her stomach as his fingers found her wet, and her inner muscles couldn't stop fluttering around his digit as it slid deep into her.

Just his finger already felt like it was stretching her too much after her long abstinence, and she almost panicked as she realized this was the first time she was having sex in three years.

"Lee," she tried to warn him, but his tongue chose that time to press into her clit and then she forgot what she was trying to say.

He was eager as he devoured her, and her inner muscles fluttering turned to full-body contractions as her orgasm took over, less than two minutes after his tongue made contact with her.

Lee's lips moved to her breasts again, his touch barely there as he waited for her to come down from her high. Her breathing had barely returned to normal before his erection pressed into her entrance, and she bit her lips, waiting for discomfort to settle in.

He inched his way inside her slowly; she would've thanked him, except whatever part of her brain was still working realized it was probably for his sake more than hers. And judging by the way his lip was quivering against her breastbone, he was on the edge himself.

When he finally stopped, fully inside her, his eyes found hers in the dark of her room and she couldn't resist the urge to run her hands through his hair. "This doesn't mean I've forgiven you, Kara," he whispered against her lips.

"I never thought it did, Lee," she replied, brushing her lips against his. It was true, she knew what this was—inevitable. Sex between them had never been conscious decisions; sex between them was like tripping when you were drunk, they just couldn't help it. The energy between them would've continued to escalate, touches and gazes and brushes, until one of them broke. This was inevitable, and she'd missed him too much to deny him this or anything else.

"I've missed you," he confessed against her neck as he began to move inside her.

She also realized this was easier than apologizing.

♣ **_Two Years and One Month Before_**♣

Kara kept looking over her shoulder.

Mary had insisted that they all come to this Fourth of July Celebration in downtown; Kara had finally given in, but now there were all these military people around her and she was starting to feel very anxious.

"Relax, honey," Mary whispered and laid a comforting hand on Kara's shoulder that wasn't occupied by a sleeping Aria. "They're here to celebrate, not to find you."

Kara sat back on the uncomfortable bleachers as the parade seemed to end. At least Aria had fallen asleep through most of it.

Lisa was sitting on the other side of Kara, pointing out her school friends in the crowd when the entire bleachers started to hum. Kara's mouth watered at the sound, and Aria fussed in her shoulder, turning her tiny head just in time as an Earth plane swooshed across the sky, leaving behind a trail of colorful smoke.

Kara turned Aria so she could look at the planes and Kara had never seen her daughter's eyes go as wide as they did then. Aria's fascination with the air show hit her like a ton of bricks; Kara's eyes followed the planes time and time again, smiling for the first time that day when Aria let out a giggle.


	14. Chapter 13

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Chapter 13

Lee had somehow ended up with some of Kara's hair in his mouth, more than likely due to the fact that they were trying to fit two adult-sized bodies in a bed that was made for one single teenager at best. It was like the Senior Pilot bunks all over again, but at least this time there wasn't anyone right above them.

Lee turned in the bed to escape Kara's curls only to be met with a pair of wide-eyed sharp blue eyes standing at the edge of the mattress. "Aria?" he asked, willing his eyes to focus in the half-light, half-dark of Kara's room in the early morning.

"Hi," Aria waved back before pulling herself up into the bed.

She didn't say anything else as she crawled into Lee's arms on top of the covers, snuggled into his chest and proceeded to fall asleep in a matter of minutes.

He stayed up, feeling slightly crowded but unwilling to move and wake up the other occupants of the bed. It was about thirty minutes later when Kara stirred against his back, and Lee felt her sitting up in the bed. "Hi," she said and he felt a sense of déjà vu.

"Morning," he replied, all thought leaving his brain as he saw her face and the beginning of a smile.

Kara's eyes seemed to finally register that Aria was in bed with them, because her expression turned apologetic. "Sorry, she can reach the door handles now and since she always wakes up before me, she's started to crawl into bed with me and go to sleep again until I wake up."

"It's okay," Lee reassured her. "I don't mind."

Kara smiled and crawled over Lee and Aria, heading out of the bedroom. Lee lay in bed, watching his daughter sleep. Aria finally stirred when the sound of running water stopped in the other room. The realization that he was going to have to call his father made Lee frown.

Lee watched intently as Kara re-entered the room, wringing water out of her hair with a fluffy towel.

Aria sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. "Momma, I'm hungwy."

"Let's get you some breakfast, nugget," Kara offered, holding her hand out.

Aria glanced at Lee before getting out of bed and taking her mother's hand.

"The bathroom is the next door to the right; there are some towels under the sink if you want to take a shower," Kara informed him as she exited the room.

Lee thanked her as he looked down at his clothes, strewn on the floor.

Alone, he lay in Kara's uncomfortable bed and covered his eyes with his arm—whatever life he'd made for himself on Earth had just been turned completely upside down in less than twenty-four hours. He had no idea where he and Kara stood, except that he knew he wanted her now just as much as ever… he had a daughter, and he also had to go back to work before the Academy sent the Military Police to retrieve him. Which meant he was about to learn how to be a father and a—whatever the hell he was to Kara— long-distance, because he was pretty sure she would never agree to go to Colorado with him.

Lee finally allowed himself to groan.

♣ **_One Year and Seven Months Before_**♣

Lee waited impatiently for American Airlines' Flight 285 from JFK to land; he hadn't been this nervous in a long time. He'd cleaned his place and bought groceries; and now he was waiting for his father. Bill had a reservation at a hotel, but Lee had wanted to make sure his apartment didn't look like an alcoholic lived there.

After one year of putting it off, Bill had finally bought a plane ticket. Colonial Day was approaching, and there was going to be a small ceremony at Peterson's Air Force Base for the Survivors. It was going to be an interesting experience, and one that Lee would've preferred to opt out on, but his father had made it clear that he expected his son's presence. And although Bill Adama was a retired Admiral these days, his orders still carried weight to Lee.

As his father emerged from one of the airport gates, Lee couldn't breathe. His father looked—_happy._ In his entire life, Lee had never seen his father like this. He knew that Laura Roslin's latest cancer remission probably had a lot to do with it.

When Lee had been young, he'd always told himself his father was stern and distant because he didn't know how to be happy; he'd told himself that it was a price to pay for the respect his father had earned through his military career. And seeing his father so happy as a retiree… it was pain and relief at the same time.

It hurt that his father had taken so long to be this free and happy; but Lee was relieved to see Adama had seemingly adjusted well to civilian life.

Time stopped as his father's arms encircled him in a powerful hug.

Lee didn't know until then, but he'd waited his whole life for this.


	15. Chapter 14

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Chapter 14

Kara tried not to eavesdrop on Lee's phone conversation in the other room, but she couldn't help but overhear some of it. Apparently Lee was having a hard time asking his superior for more time off from work; which placed her in a very difficult spot: what was she going to do now? He'd found her; she wasn't sure how yet, but he'd found her. She'd expected him to be angrier at her, but other than a small argument by the corral, he'd been taking things pretty well—all things considered.

Of course, that only made her more nervous. And kissing him the night before probably hadn't been a stroke of genius on her part, even if it led to fantastic albeit confusing sex.

She would wonder why it was always so complicated between them, but she was honest enough to realize that most of their complications were her own fault.

Lee ended his call, pulling her out of her reverie, and she knew they needed to talk. Aria was watching Saturday morning cartoons with the other kids, so Kara motioned for Lee to follow her outside.

Kara hated relationship talks; as inevitable as they could be, she'd always preferred to express herself physically rather than verbally. And considering how complicated things were now, she knew this was going to be tough, and the anxiety building up in her stomach was making her nauseous.

They walked together in silence, with her leading the way. It was just past eight, and the sun was already over the mountains and it felt good to walk in it.

"You know, we can walk until our legs give out, Kara, but we're gonna have to talk sooner or later," Lee joked.

Kara finally looked at him, and then she looked around and realized they must've walked for at least a mile. They were up the creek, and if she really squinted she could see the pond from where they stood. "Sorry," she apologized to Lee, with an embarrassed smile.

"I don't get to walk very often," he replied, "it feels nice."

Kara nodded. "I usually ride every day, down to that pond," she said as she pointed at her favorite spot. "I love it there… Aria loves it, too; she learned how to swim there. It freezes over in the winter, and Mary's kids love to go ice-skating there."

Lee didn't reply right away, and she turned to find him staring at her.

"What?" she frowned, feeling self-conscious.

He shrugged. "You like it here." It was a statement, not a question, but she nodded in reply nonetheless.

"I do," she said, biting her lip before smiling. "I can't explain it, Lee. It's almost like I've been here before," she confessed.

"Here on Earth?" he sounded confused, and she couldn't blame him.

"Yes. But not the time my viper blew up… that was different. Ever since I crashed here, and Mary took me in… the first time I saw these mountains, this creek—it was like I'd been here before. If felt right," she tried to explain.

"Like you didn't need to run anymore?" he asked, and there was just a slight hint of accusation in his voice.

She frowned, thinking about his words for a few minutes before she nodded. "I think it has something to do with Aria… but even before I found out I was pregnant, I still felt somehow connected to this place." She scoffed, shaking her head, "it sounds crazy, I know…"

"Crazier than you dying and coming back? Or crazier than the idea of you leading us to Earth?" Lee asked with a smirk.

She laughed, "Ok, you got me there." She was feeling more relaxed at the prospect of their inevitable talk. "I feel at home here, Lee."

He surprised her by pulling her into a hug, his face pressing against her hair. "Then I guess you coming back with me to Colorado is out of the question?"

She chewed on her lip, before shaking her head. "I'm sorry, Lee. I can't," she whispered against his neck.

He pulled back, a sad laughter escaping his lips. "I didn't think so."

"I can't leave here," she tried to explain, even though his eyes were telling her he understood. "I have no documents, no papers. Just my dogtags upstairs in a drawer… I don't officially exist; I can't get a driver's license or a plane ticket, Lee."

Realization seemed to dawn on him.

"I'm not saying I would move there with you," she quickly explained, "but I wouldn't mind visiting."

Lee pulled back as he nodded. "I don't want to leave you and Aria," he confessed, "but I have to go back to work on Monday. And I won't have another break until six weeks from now. Even then, I'll only have one week off before I start a new class."

"So, what do we do?" she asked, feeling more confused than before. It was almost a relief that he had to be somewhere else; at the same time she felt bad for Aria because she'd already been deprived of Lee's presence for so long, and now she was going to lose it again for at least a few months.

"If we get you papers, will you agree to visit and bring Aria?" Lee propositioned.

Kara stared at the ground, rubbing her boots against the dirt. "Yes," she finally agreed. "Just for one week… I would feel bad leaving Mary alone longer than that."

Lee smiled, aware that he'd just won a major battle in a war where he tended to be overpowered.

Kara tried to ignore the way her heart was beating faster in her chest; she knew she'd just committed to more than just a week with Lee in Colorado.

♣ **_One Year and Three Months Before_**♣

Kara carried the lopsided cake to the table, wondering once again why she'd turned down Mary's offer to bake Aria's cake and decided to do it herself. It wasn't that she was a bad cook—her mother was often inconsistent about feeding her and Kara had learned to take care of herself early on. But baking cakes had not been part of her childhood survival skills, and apparently sudden motherhood did not equal overnight acquisition of baking powers.

Aria was blissfully unaware of her mother's shortcomings, and just squealed at the sight of the cake and the single lit candle on top of it.

Joe led the group with a birthday song, as Mary began taking pictures. Kara set the cake in front of Aria on the highchair table, and watched as the infant reached for the candle with her fingers.

"No, no," Kara pulled the errant hand out of the way just in time. "You blow it out," Kara tried to explain but gave up as Aria's smile started to turn into a frown. "Here," she said as she blew the candle out herself, and then she let go of Aria's hands, sitting back and watching as the majority of the defective cake ended up on the infant's hair, hands and nose instead of her mouth.

Kara and Mary laughed, while the kids just looked disgusted and slightly miffed that they weren't going to get any cake.

One week later, Kara sat in her room after tucking Aria in, sorting through the photos that Mary had taken. She tried not to cry at the feeling that something, or someone, was missing from the pictures.


	16. Chapter 15

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Chapter 15

Lee felt empty as he closed the door to his apartment.

He'd woken up that morning, long before Aria did. The impending separation from his newfound family had granted him little sleep, and the heat of Kara's body next to him hadn't helped his insomnia one bit. His traitorous fingers had traced her skin everywhere he could reach, wondering at how he could want her even after she hid so much from him.

It wasn't just her body that he wanted, it was everything. He wanted her right now, with him, in Colorado.

Lee turned on the air conditioning, wondering how his life could've changed so much in just a couple of days. His apartment had always felt empty, but now it felt even worse—at least his urge to drink was gone, replaced by an urge to… build something? He couldn't quite understand it yet, but suddenly his father's urge to build model ships made sense.

Which brought Lee to another issue: telling his father about Kara and Aria. Lee was a little concerned, even if it seemed like the Adamas were somewhat genetically predisposed to forgive Starbuck's mistakes.

Lee picked up the phone, wishing he'd have done this before he left Montana.

"Hello?" came a sleepy male voice over the phone, and Lee frowned as he realized it was past midnight on the East Coast.

"Hey, Dad," Lee started to say, "Sorry about the time difference, it totally escaped my mind."

"Is everything okay, son?" his father's voice sounded so concerned; it made Lee feel guilty about picking up the phone at all.

"Yeah, Dad, everything's great," he lied. "I just have some news—I found Kara, Dad," Lee blurted out.

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone as his father registered the news.

"She's okay, Dad," Lee reassured him after a minute. "Actually, she's doing great."

"She's here on Earth?"

"Yeah, which is another reason why I'm calling—I need some strings pulled to get her some identification papers," Lee explained. It was a lot to ask, but it wouldn't be the first time – in fact, the ratio of times that Starbuck broke the rules was very close to the number of times that rules were broken in Starbuck's name.

"I'll talk to Laura about it," his father conceded. "She really is okay, son?"

Lee smiled. "Yes... She's been raising horses, and helping take care of a farm. She loves it there. I've never seen her happier, Dad." It wasn't a lie, because he had seen her as happy the day she'd gotten her wings, but he hadn't seen her _happier_.

"That's good news, Lee." The voice was strained, and Lee realized his father was crying. Losing Starbuck, and finding her again, had always seemed to make Bill Adama emotional.

Lee cowardly considered letting his father go on that note, but changed his mind. "There's more," Lee finally admitted, "She has a daughter, Aristaeia; Kara nicknamed her Aria, and she's gorgeous… looks just like her mother."

"Lee…?" his father's voice was confused and inquiring at the same time.

"You have a granddaughter, Dad," Lee said, trusting his father was smart enough to connect the dots.

"I have a granddaughter?" the emotional pitch was back with a vengeance, and Lee felt tears staining his own face as well.

"She's two, Dad. Twenty-five months to be exact… she's perfect."

There was another long silence from his father.

"I'm a Dad." Lee had realized and accepted over the weekend that he was a father, but it wasn't until now that he truly understood fatherhood, as he gushed to his father about Aria.

"Congratulations, son," Adama said with so much emotion. "When do I get to meet her?"

"I don't know yet. Kara's planning to come down with Aria to see me in a few weeks if we get her papers," Lee explained. He knew his father had little power when it came to Survivors' politics, but Bill Adama happened to share a condo with someone who still had a lot of say in those matters.

"You'll have those papers in forty-eight hours," Adama concluded.

Lee smiled, glad to know he hadn't been wrong in counting on his father. "Thanks, Dad."

"No, thank _you_, son."

♣ **_One Month Later_**♣

Kara clutched Aria so tight that she was afraid the toddler would wake up. Luckily for both of them, Aria had fallen asleep right after their plane took off and had stayed asleep.

The feeling of flying in a commercial airplane was absolutely nothing like flying a Viper, but it still gave Kara a small thrill, especially as the plane began its descent.

It had been three weeks since Kara received her papers, along with two round-trip tickets to Colorado Springs. She was now a Survivor Citizen of Kobol and Permanent Resident of Earth; she had the freedom to roam any country of Earth that had accepted the Survivors: over one hundred possible destinations and she just wanted to return to the security of Mary's farm.

It wasn't that she didn't miss Lee—they'd been in touch via telephone every day since he'd left, and she truly missed him. She also knew Aria and Lee needed to get to know each other. But it had taken a lot of reasoning on Mary's part for Kara to get on that plane.

There was just an impending feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop—and she didn't like it one bit. But all too soon their plane touched ground, and Kara held tight to the now awake Aria as they headed out of the plane and into the arrival gate.

And then there he was, past the security gate, a few hundred feet away but not so far that her pilot eyes couldn't make him out. Aria's vision was apparently as good as her parents', because she was tugging Kara towards the gate with more strength than a two-year-old ought to have. Lee was only a few feet away when Aria let go of Kara's hand and ran, as far as her little legs would take her, toward her father.

Kara's heart skipped a beat as Lee bent down to scoop Aria up, hugging the toddler like a life vest. Lee's finger threaded through their daughter's hair as he spoke into Aria's ear, and the girl let out a giggle as she hugged her father back.

And then Kara's feet wouldn't move, wouldn't take her closer to her family. She was completely frozen in place, and a feeling of panic was starting to make its way up her stomach—and suddenly it didn't matter because Lee moved toward her instead, and his arms wrapped around her with Aria between them.

Kara suddenly wasn't sure how she went one month away from him, let alone three years.

_fin_

**Note:** And then they lived happily ever after… kinda.

**Stay tuned for Earth Rain – Book II.**


	17. Chapter 16

**Title:** **Earth Rain – Book II**  
**Author:** Alice J. Foster (a.k.a. shipperfey)

**Summary: **The calm before the storm.

**Category:** smut. angst. romance. fluff – much fluffier than Book I.

**Spoilers: **Anything up to Season 3 is fair game.

**Characters: **Kara, Lee, and guest appearances by everyone else, including Sam.

**Rating:** NC-17/M for mature themes, and bad language.

**Warnings:** nothing that hasn't been mentioned in the rating.

**Started: **12/13/07  
**Finished:** 12/28/07

**Thanks to:** karie22 for being the most awesome beta ever, and anyareed for pre-betaing and making sure Aria sounds "right."

**Feedback: **Pretty, pretty please.

**Disclaimer: **Don't own the characters and situations you recognize, and I own the ones you don't.

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Chapter 16

"We should get married."

Kara shook with laughter at Lee's suggestion, her nude body pressing down onto his as they lay together on his couch. She stopped abruptly when she noticed he wasn't laughing with her.

"I'm serious, Kara. Let's get married," Lee pleaded.

Her mouth hung open as she stared down at him, her post-coital bliss quickly being replaced by the usual urge to flee. Instead of running though, she did the only thing she could: she started laughing again, louder this time.

Lee frowned under her.

"I'm... sorry… it's just…" she tried to talk between bouts of laughter but she couldn't get the words out, and a giggle escaped her.

"We should get married for Aria," Lee added, completely serious. "I want to give her some security."

Kara's laughter stopped. She sat up, straddling him as she showed him her best this-is-a-bad-idea face. "We can't, Lee."

"Yes, we can," Lee argued as he rose to capture her mouth in a kiss. "I hate spending time away from you and Aria," he whispered against her lips.

She moaned her disagreement into the kiss, but didn't resist from kissing him back.

Marriage was a bad idea; if she hadn't been sure of it before Sam, she was more than certain now. This—whatever it was that she and Lee were doing, was too new and she wasn't about to ruin it by making him promises she couldn't keep. Their daughter was apparently the main reason Lee wanted to get married-- and strangely enough, Aria was one of the main reasons why Kara _didn't_ want to get married. The death of her first marriage had been emotionally devastating enough for all parties involved; Kara couldn't even begin to imagine how much worse it would've been if kids had been involved. She couldn't put Aria through something like that.

Determined to make Lee forget he had proposed in the first place, Kara started a slow descent of his torso. Her lips and tongue traced familiar patterns on his chest and over his nipples in the way she knew he loved. Her teeth scraped against his left hipbone when she reached it; she liked the way his lower body bucked upwards, his renewed erection brushing against her hair. Kara avoided it on purpose, moving to rub her face against his inner thigh, feeling his muscles dancing under the skin.

He was slumped back against the arm of his couch, eyes closed. For the second time that night, Kara thanked Aria for falling asleep early and allowing her and Lee to escape to his apartment's living room for some alone time.

Kara hovered over his erection, breathing directly onto the silky skin without actually touching it. Lee groaned impatiently and finally opened his eyes; Kara rubbed her thighs together at the desire, need and desperation she saw in his irises. Holding back suddenly seemed inhumane, and she allowed her lips to slip over his tip.

Lee's hips surged against her, and Kara loved the thrill it gave her. She kept her eyes open, watching his reactions closely. It didn't take long to bring him to the brink, and she was pretty sure matrimony was the furthest thing from his mind as she pulled her mouth back before he could come, and returned to her original position straddling him.

It felt unreal to be in Lee's apartment, on Earth, and riding him into an unbelievable orgasm.

Ever since his appearance at Mary's farm four weeks before, Kara had been sure Earth was just a dream or a Cylon lie; she woke up every morning expecting to see Leoben at the foot of her bed telling her about destiny or love or the gods. But instead, Kara continued to wake up in her full-sized bed, in Mary's home, with Aria sleeping peacefully in one of their rooms.

She'd been afraid that visiting Lee would break the spell, or snap her out of some drug-induced hallucination on some basestar or remote planet; but so far the closest to hallucinations she'd had were the flashes of color she saw when she closed her eyes during an orgasm.

Lee's hands moved to cup her buttocks and pull her closer to him. She moaned, trying to be as quiet as possible and praying to the gods that Lee's apartment's walls were thicker than they looked. Fear of Aria waking up and coming out into the living room was chilling but not enough to make them stop doing it. It almost made her miss the thick bulkheads with locking hatch doors of the Galactica. Lee's attempts were as successful as hers, strained groans escaping his lips when she came, contracting rhythmically around him.

The two collapsed onto his couch, still breathless as Kara's well-trained ears attempted to make sure they hadn't woken up Aria in the next room over. When she heard nothing, she allowed herself to relax in Lee's arms.


	18. Chapter 17

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Chapter 17

Lee felt nervous as his students entered the classroom and immediately started whispering to one another, as they noticed the new face sitting in the back row.

"Come on, guys… get settled in, don't embarrass me in front of the mighty Starbuck," Lee joked, eyes locking with Kara's and he was afraid she'd regret coming here at all.

His students lit up at the confirmation that this was, indeed, Kara "Starbuck" Thrace. Three of Lee's students were Survivors and had grown up with the legend of Starbuck; and the rest had soon caught up with the worship of the foul-mouthed pilot who never backed down from a fight and could kick anyone's ass if given the chance.

The nuggets sat in their seats, still whispering to one another and staring at Kara, but Kara's eyes were locked with Lee's and the way she was staring at him was making him regret bringing her along to class. Lee told himself it could be worse—she could be chewing on a pen like she used to do in the Ready Room and it would had always succeed in driving him mad with desire.

"Are you really Starbuck?" one of the male nuggets asked nervously.

"One and only," Kara replied with a smirk, finally breaking eye contact with Lee. He didn't mind, because teaching an entire class behind his podium to hide the effect she had on him would be conspicuous.

"I heard you were dead," another nugget piped in.

"No, no, she went back to the colonies, to rescue more people," a third female nugget contradicted.

"Sorry to disappoint," Kara replied, "but the answer is: none of the above." She turned back to Lee, looking obviously unwilling to share the inner details of her past three years with his nuggets. "So, Instructor, are we getting to the flight lessons at all, or have you just been showing them my old logs and videos and hoping they'll learn from that?" she asked Lee, and the entire class hid their smirks at her flippant tone.

Feeling extremely self conscious, Lee queued his projector, to show the video of his mission on the tylium refinery while Kara had been nursing her bum knee—her mission. All the presentations he had ready were videos of her flying feats, and Lee almost blushed at the realization that she was his best teaching tool.

Yeah, Lee was pretty sure that having her here was a bad idea.

The nuggets ooh'ed and aww'ed as they took notes.

_Did you really fly against six raiders on bingo fuel?_

_What about the time you took control of a downed raider?_

_Is it true you led the fleet to Earth?_

Kara did her part; Starbuck answered their questions, corrected their assumptions, made them doubt every one of their convictions, and taught them how to do a reverse barrel roll with one engine down-- and every nugget left the classroom with more passion for flying than they'd ever felt before. Lee knew the feeling; he'd always been a good pilot but never the best. Yet being around Kara… her enthusiasm for flying was always contagious.


	19. Chapter 18

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Chapter 18

Kara's eyes followed the students as they funneled out, two of the female nuggets stealing an admiring look at their instructor and promptly missing the big 'keep out' sign Lee had on his forehead; oversights like these in the air could get one killed.

Lee, as usual, was oblivious; his eyes kept stealing quick glances at Kara as he put his computer away.

Talking about flying for the first time in years was making her body hum with adrenaline, and she was pretty sure she was blushing. "Thanks," she told Lee as she walked up to meet him.

"I think I should be the one thanking you, Kara," Lee replied with a smile. "Did you see the look on their faces? I could never inspire that much passion in them."

Kara bit back her reply about him being able to inspire just the right amount of passion in her—and apparently two of his nuggets as well—, and just looked sheepish instead. "Still, it felt great to talk about flying again, so thank you."

Lee's eyes met hers and he shrugged. "Then don't thank me just yet."

He led her out of his classroom and past several security doors. She couldn't shake the fear that someone was going to forcefully quarantine her, even with Lee's reassurances that her presence at the Academy had been cleared through Roslin's office and the United States' Presidential Cabinet as well.

They walked together out of the main building and into a smaller one. Planes flew above them and Kara couldn't help but smile at the sounds of propulsion engines breaking the sound barrier; it was as soothing to her as Aria's steady breathing through the night.

"Come on, Kara," Lee insisted, holding a door open for her.

She continued to follow him, until they arrived at a dark room that seemed empty. He fidgeted with some controls to the side until lights started to turn on and Kara's eyes widened at the sight of two Vipers unlike any that she'd seen before. She glanced back at Lee, speechless, before taking a few steps to the crafts and running her hand over the metal. "My gods," she whispered as her eyes saw the name etched onto the metal.

"These are the Starbuck IIIs," Lee explained.

"You named them after me?" Kara asked, ego inflating like a balloon.

"Not me," Lee replied. "Chief's idea. He's been at Peterson all this time, helping the local engineers develop a Kobol-Earth craft," Lee explained. "Unfortunately Starbuck I and II weren't even built due to mechanical incompatibilities, and we haven't gotten the third prototype to fly," he explained. "We keep them around as simms, but I figured you might want to give it a try."

She grinned wide as he handed her a strange helmet and flightsuit.

"The suits have pressure points in them that mimic actual flight. And the helmets have LCDs built-in as well as surround sound. The vipers are on a hydraulic mount, so it'll climb when you climb, and nosedive when you nosedive. Apparently Earth wanted the full experience without the liability."

She didn't even blink an eye before she stripped off her jacket and shoes to put on the flightsuit. It fit almost as well as her old colonial suit.

Lee pushed a button that made the cockpit of one of the planes open and she was up the stairs with just a few steps. She settled into the cockpit; it was bigger than those of a Mark Viper, but she wasn't about to complain about the extra room, especially considering it housed a lot of extra equipment as well. She glanced down at the controls in front of her, quickly memorizing them before she slipped her helmet on.

The cockpit canopy closed above her. After being grounded for so long, it felt claustrophobic for a second until the helmet's LCD turned on and the engine shook to life on the hydraulic mount.

"This is awesome," she admitted.

"Isn't it?" Lee's voice echoed in her ears, and she realized the audio was networked.

She worked the familiar and unfamiliar controls in front of her, testing them out. Her body reacted to the increased Gs, the fake sound of engines making her nerve endings hum. It was almost too much for her senses, but she followed Lee's virtual viper, playing a game of catch through the CGI-skies.

Her laughter echoed in her ears as she finally one-upped him; she might be a little rusty, but she wasn't about to be outdone by Apollo. "I just owned you," she teased, laughing again.

"No, you didn't," Lee argued. "I was just letting you get ahead because it's been so long for you. Didn't want to hurt your feelings," he teased back.

"Only thing hurting is your flying, Apollo!"

His laughter was the only reply, before he finally caught up with her and she almost ate her own words.

When they finally took a break, her entire body was tingling. She pushed open her canopy, throwing her helmet onto the seat she'd just vacated and climbing down the stairs in two moves. She shed her flightsuit as Lee opened his own canopy, and she pulled his helmet off and threw it to the ground where it made a very expensive crashing noise.

Her lips attacked his, tongues battling out like their virtual vipers had been doing just minutes before. Lee pulled her into his cockpit and she landed on his lap, his hands pushing her shirt up and her bra down. His lips were gone from hers, and soon they closed around a sensitive nipple; Kara moaned as her entire torso rose to meet Lee's invaluable mouth.

She could feel his hardness between them, even through all the layers of clothing in the way—a number she wanted to minimize, so she tugged on his hair until his lips released the skin of her breast, pushing him away so she could try to get him out of his suit. It didn't move enough for her liking, so Kara sighed with frustration as she pulled herself up to give Lee room to remove his own clothing while she worked on hers.

Her clothes fell down the side of the viper, and Lee couldn't get all of his clothing off but he'd managed to move the flightsuit out of the way enough to be able to unbutton his pants and release his erection. It wasn't perfect but it would have to do, especially considering Kara wasn't too sure what timeframe they were working with here—as far as she knew, this area could be used on a daily basis, and she wasn't too eager to have her newfound access taken away.

Of course, most people would argue that perhaps _not_ breaking the rules was the best way to avoid punishment, but Kara had realized early on that people that didn't break the rules were idiots. And as she slid down his length, she couldn't quite care about the lack of room or the fact that he was still half-clothed.

The adrenaline from earlier was still pushing through her body, making the sensations all the more heightened; she'd been so close to climaxing from their earlier game of tag that it just took one particularly deep thrust on Lee's part to push her over the edge. She came, contracting around him, fingers pressing against the glass of the canopy behind her.

Lee moaned as he sped up his thrusts, and Kara allowed her torso to move backwards to press against the controls behind her. The slight adjustment caused his thrusts to hit her spot every time, their breathing picking up. Kara's back pushed against the panel, and the hydraulics beneath the viper hummed to life, making her come even harder than she expected.

The viper moved into a climbing position, and Lee's suit made noises beneath them that weren't nearly as endearing as the noises Lee himself was making at the moment, as his hips thrust against hers so fast and so deep he wasn't even making contact with the seat under them anymore.

She flew past yet another peak before she felt his release, followed by his moist lips brushing against her warm chest and creating sensations that should be illegal on any colony and on Earth as well.

It took them a long time before both of them came down - literally and figuratively.


	20. Chapter 19

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Chapter 19

Lee blushed deeply as they re-entered the main Academy building. These people might not know Kara, but her hair and smirk were totally giving their little liaison away.

And he was pretty scared of what would happen to him when they found out that one of the helmets was broken… then he realized if he lost his job, it wouldn't be the end of the world because it would mean he could finally leave Colorado and move to Montana. Not that Kara had agreed to any such plan. And if he were honest with himself, he did get fulfillment from his job as a flight instructor—if he didn't, he wouldn't have lasted three years of solitude on Earth.

Either way, things were still up in the air between them, and he was trying to enjoy the week before having any inevitable talks about their future.

He and Kara stopped by the daycare center to pick up Aria. The girl's face lit up as she saw them through the glass, and she ran out of the play room in just her socks. She'd been less than happy about the no-shoe policy of the daycare that morning, throwing a small fit at having to remove her favorite shoes. But now she looked like it was all forgotten.

A tired-looking daycare employee followed Aria out and handed Lee the child's belongings.

"How did my nugget do today, all by herself?" Kara asked as she helped Aria put on her shoes. The toddler proceeded to babble about her day to them and Lee still couldn't understand most of it, but the whole thing felt right—felt natural, to pick up their daughter together.

Aria demanded to be held, and Lee was catching up to fatherhood quickly enough to recognize that the toddler was obviously worn out. He helped her into her jacket before he scooped her up, tickling her stomach and making her giggle before she settled against his shoulder.

Kara's hand rubbed Aria's back as they walked towards the exit and her fingers brushed against his arm too many times to be accidental.

They were almost to the parking lot when someone shouted Kara's name and they turned to see a flustered Anders waving and taking large steps towards them.

"Sam!" Kara shouted in surprise, eyes searching Lee's for a moment before turning to her ex.

Lee couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of jealousy as the other man reached them and enveloped Kara into a hug. And then Lee remembered that if it weren't for Sam, he wouldn't be holding his daughter, and the negative feelings quickly dissipated.

Aria was interested in the stranger in front of them, and she watched the whole scene with wide eyes.

Anders pulled back from the hug, eyes finally registering Aria and going wide. "Wow," he breathed out, obviously affected by the resemblance to Kara.

Kara's hand touched the other man's arm as she introduced him to her daughter. "This is Aria. Aria, this is mommy's friend Sam."

"Hi," Aria said with a smile.

"Hi," Anders replied, and Aria reacted by blushing and hiding against Lee's neck. "Congratulations, guys," Sam said with a sad but hopeful voice, eyes meeting Lee's before turning back to Kara.

"Thanks," Kara smiled at Aria, who was still burrowed against Lee.

Lee realized that the silence between the three of them stretched out into uncomfortable territory, and he felt he owed to Sam to let the guy have a moment alone with his ex-wife. "Hey, I'll go ahead and get her in the car and buckled in," Lee explained as he pointed towards the parking lot. "It was nice to see you again, Sam."

Kara thanked him silently, her fingers reaching out to brush against his as he walked past them.

Aria waved goodbye to her new acquaintance from her spot on Lee's shoulder, before she started babbling to Lee again. As Lee once against marveled at the wonders of fatherhood, he couldn't help but feel sorry for Sam.


	21. Chapter 20

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Chapter 20

Kara listened to Lee's footsteps as he walked away with Aria, and she didn't realize she was staring into the ground until Sam's hand touched her chin. Her eyes met his again, and she smiled as she realized he wasn't still mad at her. She couldn't understand why he wasn't mad at her, not after she broke his heart and left him, but she realized if Lee could forgive her, Sam probably could too.

What was it about these two? No matter what she did or how badly she hurt them, they always forgave her.

"She's gorgeous, Kara," Sam pointed his head toward the direction Lee had gone.

"Thank you," Kara replied with motherly pride. "She's the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Sam nodded. "You look happy."

"I feel happy," she admitted. It wasn't unconditional happiness, but she realized her life at the moment was better than she could have ever hoped for.

"Don't frak it up," Sam joked, but she could see the seriousness behind it.

"I'm trying not to," she said, tears welling up in her eyes.

Sam's thumb reached to wipe the tears away, before he pulled her into another hug. "You deserve to be happy, Kara. I wish we could've been happy forever, but what we had is enough to last me a lifetime… and you—you went through so much shit for the Fleet, and you need to understand that you've paid your dues. I'm serious, don't mess things up this time."

"I won't," she reassured Sam, realizing as soon as the words left her mouth that she'd just made a promise. She wasn't sure what it was about Samuel T. Anders that always managed to get her to make promises she didn't know if she could keep—and he always made her try.

Sam released her from the hug, checking his watch. "Sorry, I've got a meeting coming up."

She shook her head, wiping her own tears this time. "It's okay," she said. "I have to go, too." She watched as he started to turn around before she stopped him, "Are they treating you alright?"

Sam shrugged. "Pretty good, nowadays. Letting us toasters off-base, and giving us jobs. It's not perfect yet, but they'll get there."

She nodded, regretting once again having run away the moment they arrived on Earth. It hadn't been just Lee she'd left behind, but Sam and all of her friends as well, and when they'd most needed her. "That's a start," she conceded. "I'm going to be in town all week… was planning to stop by Peterson and see everyone."

Sam smiled, "Cool. I guess we'll see you then," he said as he moved away towards his meeting. "It was really nice seeing you, Kara," he said before disappearing around a corner.

Kara dried her tears before she headed to where they'd parked Lee's car. Aria was already dozing off in her carseat, and Lee was standing against the car, watching her as she approached. He looked worried, and she forced herself to smile. When she reached him, she couldn't help but kiss him, drawing strength from the contact. They stood there together in the parking lot for several minutes, foreheads touching as Kara reflected on the promise she'd just made to Sam.

It should feel surreal to have just promised her ex-husband that she wasn't going to frak things up with her current—whatever Lee was--, but she'd grown accustomed to surreal. And as Lee's lips brushed against her ear, she couldn't help but make up her mind and promise herself she was going to do everything she could to uphold her promise. Even if it meant fighting against her own instinct to flee.


	22. Chapter 21

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Chapter 21

Lee had seen Kara pull numerous stunts in a Viper that didn't seem logical or possible… he'd seen her find her way back to him in extraordinary situations… and he'd seen her come back from certain death multiple times...

Yet the sight of Kara Thrace cooking reduced him to speechlessness.

It was only a meatloaf, and she'd almost looked hurt when he'd questioned her cooking skills after she volunteered to make them dinner, but it felt huge to Lee. Then again, she'd been acting strangely since her conversation with Sam earlier – both a little bit happier and a little bit sadder as well.

Lee couldn't quite understand it, so he decided to just enjoy the increase in happiness and deal with the rest later.

She'd showered once they got home—to his home--, and she was now wearing a pair of shorts and one of his t-shirts as she moved around his apartment like it was her own.

Which it could be, if she only said the word.

Lee glanced at the clock when Kara put the meatloaf in the oven; he still wasn't familiar enough with Aria's nap schedules, but even after dozing off in the car, she'd been pretty tired once he'd brought her in. Kara had bathed her and she'd promptly fallen asleep again, so she was probably out for a couple more hours.

As he moved towards Kara, he _really _hoped Aria would be out for a couple more hours.

The feeling of Kara's body pressed between his and the kitchen counter was fantastic. He could feel every muscle of her stomach, tensing up against his own, and she looked up at him with a surprised smirk on her face. She looked almost innocent, her eyes looking into his with mirth, but he was familiar enough with the sight to recognize the silent desire there in the hazel irises.

Lee grabbed her hips and hoisted her onto the kitchen counter island. She tried to push his pants off with her feet, but he had other plans - plans that involved her lying flat on his counter, which he achieved after helping her out of his shirt. The cotton of her shorts and underwear put up little resistance as he dragged them down her legs.

His mouth watered as he looked at her sex, his fingers reaching out to stroke her thighs. He bent down and ran his flat tongue up and down; it took a few strokes before her inner lips opened up against him and her essence came spilling onto his tongue. From the sounds she was making, she didn't mind his plans at all.

He drove his tongue inside of her, working it in circles and stretching her out. It was sensory overload: the scent of her was intoxicating, the noises she was making were going straight to his core, and the heat of her skin was scorching his face.

Lee couldn't take the pressure building in him, and he pushed his pants off without losing contact with Kara. His hand expertly found his erection and he stroked it slowly, with enough power to push his own need back a little. The same hand moved upwards to her center, and his thumb closed in on the bundle of nerves that his tongue hadn't touched yet. Her hips surged off the counter when he pressed against it, thighs trembling around his shoulder.

"Oh, frak!" Kara moaned from the kitchen counter and Lee scoffed against her center, making her thighs tremble even more.

Her wetness was making his lips and chin moist, and Lee could tell by the way her hips kept pushing against his tongue that she was becoming desperate. He couldn't fill her as deeply as he wanted with his tongue, so his mouth switched places with his hand. Two long fingers entered her, pressing against the right spots slowly at first before he started pumping his fingers more quickly. His tongue found her clit, lips closing in around it and creating a sucking motion. It didn't take longer than three more strokes of his fingers before she came against his mouth, muscles closing in so deliciously tightly around his fingers that he almost came against his kitchen tiles.

Lee's hand on her stomach steadied her as she came down, his own hardness throbbing madly. Kara surprised him by sitting up and tugging the shirt he was wearing off, and he kicked his own pants off for good measure before standing up. The counter height was perfect for what he had in mind, and Lee moaned as he entered her. She was so wet and hot that he was lucky they'd had sex in the viper a couple hours before, or he'd be gone already.

With a display of her old strength, Kara's arms pulled him down to her, and their lips crashed together in desperation and need. The kiss served to surprise him as strong legs pushed against his hip, and Lee almost whimpered as he slid out of her heat. Something in her eyes told him to go with it, and as she hopped off the counter then turned away from him, he was grateful for his trust.

As he re-entered her from behind, her back molded against his chest and Lee's hand moved from where it was gripping the counter to a supple breast. Kara pushed back against his touch and the feeling was overwhelming.

"Oh, gods, Lee!" she moaned as every muscle in her body seemed to spasm at once and then she went limp in his arms. Lee was glad his hand was holding her up against him, or he was sure she would've hit her chin on the counter.

It only took a couple more thrusts until he came inside of her, body trembling as he was quickly reminded of why sex standing up was a practice people tended to abandon in their mid-twenties.

And then Kara laughed against him, an endorphin-rich laugh that made every nerve ending in his body stand at attention, and any discomfort he might be feeling was completely gone.


	23. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Kara was woken up by the sound of a jet plane flying over Lee's apartment.

It was still before dawn, and she was lying half on top of Lee, naked and would probably be feeling great if it wasn't for the cramp in her lower back from sleeping against the back of his couch. She tried to stretch it, but only succeeded in waking Lee up.

He grunted, hands coming up to hold her in place before he sleepily nuzzled her neck. She tried to fight the arousal that his touch brought on, but when Lee's leg slid between hers, she realized she wasn't the only one aroused. He was a guy and it was probably just his natural morning response, but she figured they might as well take advantage of it.

The door to Lee's room was still closed, and it would be a good thirty minutes before Aria woke up, so Kara rubbed herself against Lee's erection. He turned them so they were both on their sides on the couch, facing each other. She was still wet from their activities the night before, and he slid inside with ease.

His thrusts were unhurried, the cramp in her back still present but pushed to the back of her mind for the time being. She wondered if this was normal; not that she'd ever had trouble getting into sex or having sex multiple times in a day, but she was aware that sexual appetite was supposed to decrease with age and time. They weren't in the academy anymore, and this new stage of their frakked-up relationship was still pretty fresh to warrant the fantastic sex and all, but the more sex they had, the more she wanted. And while in the past she used to have certain preferences according to the type of frak she wanted or the partner she had, with Lee it honestly didn't matter if it was slow, fast, hard or tender - it always did the trick.

"Morning," Lee whispered against her neck.

"Morn--," she started to reply before her voice broke and she crashed, eyes closing tight as the fireworks exploded. "Oh gods, frakfrakfrakfrak," she moaned out, hips pushing back against him to draw out the sensations.

Lee gave a satisfied and proud chuckle against her neck, teeth scrapping against her collarbone in what was sure to leave a mark. His fingers moved to the soft part of her hip, stroking the skin there firmly and leaving goosebumps all over.

She couldn't stop her muscles from contracting around him, every time he pulled out and drove back in she would feel the fluttering again, and it was like her orgasm would never end, it just drew on and on and on.

Lee came with a sharp thrust inside of her, and her toes curled as she finally started to come down from her high, every muscle in her body aching from the multiple spasms they'd just gone through.

Her head dropped to his shoulder, heart still racing. Her back twitched again, and she groaned against his skin. "We really need to try a regular sized bed someday," she quipped.

Lee pulled her so she was lying completely on top of him, pulling the blanket tighter around them. "I can buy a new couch with a fold-out bed for Aria," he offered. "Until I get a bigger place."

Kara bit her lip, because it was more than an offer to buy a new couch, it was the first part of a long-term plan that had not yet been agreed upon by either party. "Lee, I don't want you to get a bigger place for just a few weeks out of the year," she tried to say as neutrally as possible, silently adding _since we haven't agreed on living arrangements on a long-term basis_.

"She deserves her own room, Kara. Whether it's for one week, one month or the whole year."

She couldn't really argue with that logic, especially since it demanded no decision-making on her part for the time being and that was more than she should expect.

"Hey," he said carefully, moving her hair out of her face so he could watch her reaction. "I've been thinking… your time down here is up soon, and my classes will end just ten days after you leave… Is it okay if Aria stays down here for those ten days? I'll only have five classes left and a bunch of time off in between, and she seemed to do okay at the childcare center," he continued to talk nervously.

Kara positioned her chin on his breastbone, biting her lip. She'd never been separated from Aria before, and just thinking about it now was making her uneasy.

"I wanted to bond with her on my own for a few days," Lee explained. "I missed so much of her life already… plus I'd bring her back to Montana as soon as I'm done here."

It was almost too much to ask, but Kara also realized that even though Lee hadn't mentioned it, it was her fault that he'd missed the first two years of their daughter's life—Kara owed it to him to give him the chance to strengthen his bond with Aria on his own. She nodded, her pointy chin digging into his skin but he didn't complain one bit.

The smile he gave her warmed her soul.

"Do you want to go to Peterson today?" he asked, still grinning. "I don't have any classes."

"Today?" she contemplated the question, still feeling unsure about going there. She wanted to see her old acquaintances, but she was also expecting some awkwardness. She did want to talk to the Chief about the Starbuck III thrust pedals and gymbal system, so she nodded. "Might as well," she added, sitting up and dragging the blanket with her.

Lee sent her a pleading look and she gave him her best smile.

"Come on, we should take a shower before the nugget wakes up," she leered suggestively. Sex was likely out of the agenda due to recent activities and time constraints, but that didn't mean they couldn't have fun.

Lee was off the couch and leading the way in a split second.


	24. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Base security took almost fifteen minutes double and triple-checking their clearance passes. When they were finally allowed inside, they let Aria down and she walked between them as she held both their hands.

They found Tigh first, and Lee was surprised by the hug between Kara and the former XO.

"By gods, we were worried about you!" the cylon said, still holding tight.

Kara pulled back and shrugged, a little bit of the old Starbuck cockiness resurfacing.

Tigh seemed to notice the toddler for the first time, eyes going wide as he looked at Aria, then up at Kara and then Lee, then back to the child. "The Old Man told me, but I didn't believe it."

Kara grinned proudly, the motherhood grin Lee was starting to get used to.

"This is Aria," she explained, running her hands through Aria's blond curls.

"Hi there," Tigh offered with an uncomfortable smile.

Lee was pretty sure the older man had never as much as held a child in his life.

"She's your spitting image," Tigh pointed out to Kara before turning to Lee. "I guess yours too… no wonder the old man was over the moon."

Lee grinned this time, and he realized he was also starting to develop a special fatherhood pride smile. He couldn't see much of him in Aria except for her eyes, but it still made him swell with pride.

"Come on, let's go to the cafeteria," Tigh motioned. "The food's awful, but it's still better than algae, and everyone's there."

"Al-gee?" Aria frowned, looking at Lee for answers.

"Something yucky, that gods willing you'll never have to eat," he explained as well as he could.

Aria made a face and Lee laughed, holding her hand as they followed Kara and Tigh.

Several dozen people were gathered at the mess hall, and it seemed like everyone turned to look as Kara entered the room. Some people waved, the more brave ones came up to hug her or shake her hand. Aria grew shy, hiding in Lee's pantleg and refusing to be introduced to any more people.

Cally and Tyrol appeared with Nicky, hugging Kara with surprised looks on their faces. Kara accepted a seat with them at one of the tables, and she left a seat open for Lee, but before he could join them, their daughter started pulling him towards the opposite end of the room.

Lee followed, finally seeing who his daughter was heading to. He waved at Anders, who acknowledged him with a head nod as he clutched a pyramid ball.

"Sam," Aria pointed out with a chubby finger. Lee felt himself swelling with pride again at his daughter's obviously good memory.

"Hi there," Anders replied, getting down on one knee and tickling Aria's stomach.

"Sorry," Lee apologized. "She saw you and must've recognized you from yesterday."

Sam shook his head, "It's no problem."

"Kara's here."

Sam nodded, "Yeah, she said she'd be stopping by sometime this week to see everyone," his eyes turned a little sad as he looked up from Aria to Lee. "How are things?"

Lee wasn't sure how to respond. He realized he'd grown to think of Sam Anders as almost a friend, and he didn't want to hurt the guy. Lee was more than familiar with the pain of watching Kara with another person; but at the same time, Lee didn't want to lie to Anders either. "Things are good," he replied, not elaborating too much. Things were great, even if there were a lot of unanswered questions, but Lee didn't want to say too much.

"She looked happy yesterday," Sam commented. "Well, not about seeing me, but you know, happy in general."

"She was glad to see you," Lee reassured him. "I think it just threw her off a little."

"I know what you mean," Anders added. "I'm glad that sending you to Montana was a good thing."

Lee smiled, reaching down to touch his daughter's back. "I could never thank you enough."

"I'd say something insightful right now, like 'if you ever break her heart, I'll kill you' but that sounds too cliché. Plus I think we both know it's more likely to happen the other way around," Sam pointed out.

Lee had to laugh at the truth of it.

Sam returned his attention to the toddler who was gazing adoringly at him. "So, Aria, have you ever played pyramid?"

She shook her head, curls vehemently springing back and forth.

"Oh, come on, we need to teach you. Your mommy is a great pyramid player, and I think you'll be awesome too."

Lee rolled his eyes. "She's two, man."

Sam shrugged. "That's old enough to catch a ball," he argued. "Come on, Aria, let me show you how to play."

Lee followed with Aria until they came across a makeshift pyramid court, and Anders was true to his word, rolling the ball to Aria and holding her up so she could drop it in and score.

By the time Kara found them, Lee was pretty sure that Aria was as infatuated with the game as she was with her cylon instructor.


	25. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Kara felt great as she lounged on Lee's new couch, watching the news on television.

When they'd arrived from the furniture store, Lee had ordered them pizza and insisted on giving Aria a bath on his own as a test run for the following weeks.

The idea of Lee keeping Aria for ten days was starting to grow on her, especially with the way Aria was growing attached to Lee.

The phone rang and Kara looked at it with some discomfort, not knowing what to do. Technically, it wasn't her phone, or her house, no matter what crazy feelings of domesticity were running through her head.

"Hey Kara, would you mind getting that, please?" Lee shouted from the bathroom, followed by a loud splash and a girly giggle.

"Hello," Kara spoke into the handset as she picked it up.

"Kara?" the ever familiar voice asked with surprise.

"Sir?" her voice broke just a little bit.

"I'm retired, Kara, drop the sir," he replied with a hearty laugh. "Lee told me you were coming to visit him, but didn't tell me when or I would've scheduled a visit as well."

She missed him. She hadn't realized how much until she heard his voice. Fear of his wrath over her cowardly exit had kept her from calling him, because there was no one else in the entire universe whose regard she cared for as much as Bill Adama's. "I'm sorry," she apologized- for everything, including keeping Aria from him.

"It's okay, I guess I can wait until Christmas to see you and her," Bill added, making clear that her presence during the Earth-based end-of-year festivities was an order.

She always spent Christmas with Mary and the kids, and she wanted to tell him just that, but instead she replied, "Yes, sir."

He chuckled at her use of the word again, but the truth was that she had no idea what to call him. He'd always be the Commander, the Admiral to her.

"I feel like I need to thank you, Kara," he added softly.

"For what?" Kara asked, confused.

"For giving me the most perfect granddaughter an old man like me could ever want," Adama replied. "Lee sent me some pictures, and I could not believe my eyes."

Kara smiled and refrained from replying that Aria wouldn't be half as gorgeous without the Adama genes to help out. "You're welcome." She wanted to apologize to him, wanted to give him some explanations, but she just bit her lip.

"Tell Lee I'll call him back next Sunday," Bill asked with more emotion than she ever thought possible.

"Aye-aye, sir," she replied with a smile as she prepared to disconnect the call.

"Hey, Starbuck?" he called out before she hung up.

Kara picked up the receiver again.

"What do you hear?"

Kara felt her eyes watering just slightly as she replied. "Nothing but the rain."

Adama laughed. "I'll see you in a few weeks, Kara," he said before he was gone.

As Kara hung up the phone, she realized she was forgiven.

And a minute or two later, she also realized she'd agreed to spend Christmas with the Adamas.


	26. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

As Kara walked towards him wearing nothing, Lee realized that the privacy of his room was a very good thing.

She moved around his bedroom, completely oblivious to her nudity or her nudity's effect on him.

Everything nowadays seemed to leave her in good spirits; Lee realized that his Starbuck was returning slowly. She joked more, she smirked plenty, and she'd impressed a class-full of nuggets just for him. And from what Tyrol had said as they left the base, she might just have possibly figured out how to get the prototype vipers in the air.

Lee loved Kara, all of her, including the Starbuck side of her - even if it had a foul mouth and mean right hook. And a mean left hook. Also some of the most painful kicks he'd ever been unlucky enough to receive in his life.

Watching her come back to him, broken yet fixed, changed but still the same—it was a heady feeling.

It was tantalizing to watch her as she brushed her teeth; he never quite cared for having to watch other people's oral hygiene in communal bathrooms, but this was definitely a pleasant sight. Probably due to the fact that Lee was paying more attention to the way her hips swayed just slightly with the motion of the brushing, and how the hair that cascaded down to the middle of her back was moving like a pendulum, drawing him in.

Lee got up from the bed when she finished brushing her teeth, shedding his sweatpants that passed for pajamas most nights, and joined her in the bathroom. He tried to think how many times he'd wanted to do just this in the mornings aboard the _Galactica_. He'd watched her from a distance as she went through the motions, whenever she was too tired or too hungover to notice his staring.

She noticed this time, eyes meeting his via the bathroom mirror. He didn't waste time as he positioned himself behind her, and he just needed to rub himself against her entrance a couple times before her wetness rushed out to greet him. He entered her with the grace of a Viper in a launcher tube, the desperation of it all not hitting him until she was grasping the edge of the counter and pushing back at him with the same amount of passion he was demonstrating.

She came around him once, twice, three times-- he lost count as her eyes locked with his in the mirror. He could never grow tired of the sight of Kara Thrace as she went over the edge; it was similar to the face she made when she won a tough triad hand, except a hundred times better.

Her torso bent closer to the sink as she moaned through another climax; her hot breath was creating diverse patterns on the bathroom mirror that appeared and disappeared with every thrust Lee made.

The vision of her bouncing breasts was what finally pushed him over the edge. When he pulled out of her warmth, she spun to meet him, lips and tongues meeting in a joint effort to make his knees wobble.

He kept her body pressed between him and the sink as he brushed his own teeth.

"I thought we were going to make use of the bed," she quipped with her lips opening wide in false surprise.

"Beds are overrated," Lee said, even as he pulled her towards his queen-sized bed. Once he was lying down, an unsettling feeling overcame him and he threw the covers off and unlocked the bedroom door.

Aria was sleeping peacefully on the new sofa bed, under the pink blanket they'd gotten her earlier. Satisfied, he locked the door again, smiling as he saw Kara already drifting off. He slid into bed next to her, close enough to her that they could share body heat but without actually touching.

Sometime in the night, she was the one who moved closer to him, and it felt like a victory.


	27. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Kara woke up to the feeling of a damp inferno closing in on her. Her body arched off Lee's bed as she opened her eyes, finding that Lee's mouth was the source of the wet heat as his lips wrapped around her nipple.

"Oh gods, Lee," she moaned as she pushed against him, feeling already close to the edge but her body was still sleepy and she wasn't sure exactly what she wanted.

"I was trying to let you sleep in," he spoke against her skin with a smirk, as he moved to her other breast.

"No sleep," she panted at him, her body finally deciding it wanted to be touched between her legs but Lee wasn't getting the message quickly enough for her liking, so her own hand made its way to her damp folds.

Lee finally noticed what she was doing, and pulled back to watch her. She felt even hotter under his gaze, and his hands looked like they were about to relieve hers but instead they just pressed against her inner thighs, spreading her to his hungry eyes.

She was too close to the edge to stop now, her fingers making quick work of her clit; the slickness was flooding out of her so quickly that it was making her fingers slip more than she wanted, pushing her release farther away with the diminishing friction.

The frustration must've made its way to her expression, because Lee seemed to pick up on it. Long fingers entered her, stretched her and found the spot against her inner walls that made her legs tremble.

Her orgasm was hard and unforgiving, drawn out by the thick fingers inside of her even as her own fingers had stilled against her thigh. Her eyes were tightly closed, as fireworks continued their impressive display behind her eyelids.

Just as she started to regain control of her muscles, Lee surprised her by running his tongue against her juices, drinking her in completely. She opened her eyes, and the visual of Lee's head between her legs with his eyes watching her intently was almost as pleasurable as the feeling of his tongue against her folds.

His lips moved north, closing around her clit and sucking hard. Kara couldn't bite back the throaty scream that formed.

There had always been sexual chemistry between them, and Kara knew there had to be something very particular about Lee Adama's sexual prowess, because her fantasies of him had followed her through relationships and one-night stands long before their lips had ever met. In one way, it had been easier dealing with the fantasy, because after she found out what it felt like to truly have him, it had changed her.

To say Lee was good at oral sex was like saying she'd been a good viper pilot. He covered all the right spots, pulling back when she was rising too quickly and then pushing her right back to the edge.

Kara was moaning and panting; her fingers clawed at the pillow under her head. There were definite advantages to a bed, Kara realized as time passed and she didn't have to worry about Lee being uncomfortable. His fingers slowly returned to her center, tracing the edges of her nether lips in tantalizing circles as she bucked against him.

Once more he brought her to the edge, and she was sure he'd let her come this time. She was wrong; he pulled back completely this time, and then his arms were hooking under her knees and he pushed inside her with his hardness in one swift stroke and she flew, higher than she thought possible. She felt almost apologetic for the way she was contracting so tightly around him, except judging by the way he was biting his lip and staring hungrily at her, he didn't mind it one bit.

Lee's thrusts quickly grew erratic, and the silky skin of his erection felt like it was burning her, fueling the fire inside of her. Kara's hands left the pillow and moved to clutch at his shoulders. She could feel the muscle under his skin flexing and relaxing as he thrust into her, his forearms holding her open for him.

It wasn't long before another orgasm hit her, this one soft and weaker, drawn out by Lee's thrusts. Lee followed her shortly, collapsing on top of her.

She smiled wide at him when he finally gathered enough strength to move, and the way his knees wobbled under him like a newborn colt filled her with a rush. He pulled the sheet on top of her before he moved to the bathroom.

Kara lay there in bed, irrevocably changed forever.


	28. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Lee watched as Kara hesitantly passed through airport security. She turned to look at him and Aria once again, and he could see the silent argument she was having with herself.

"Say goodbye to mommy again," Lee whispered conspiratorially to his daughter.

"Bye, mommy," Aria shouted as she clumsily waved her hands.

"Tell her we'll see her soon," Lee continued to feed Aria lines.

"See ya soon, mommy!" Aria shouted again.

He watched as Kara smiled a forced smile for Aria's sake and waved towards them.

Aria stood still in his arms as they watched Kara finally disappear past security. He waited for a few minutes to make sure she hadn't changed her mind, and once he was satisfied she was en route to Montana, he started to walk toward the exit with Aria.

"Where's mommy?" Aria asked, seemingly confused.

"She went home, remember? That's why we were waving her goodbye," Lee explained.

"Home with Mawy?" she asked as Lee buckled her into her carseat.

"Yes, nugget, home with Mary."

"And me, daddy?"

"You're staying here for a few days with me," Lee repeated. They'd explained the arrangement to Aria before Kara had left, but apparently the information hadn't been properly processed by the two-year-old.

Aria smiled at the idea of spending time with Lee, and he felt his heart swell in his chest.

"What should we have for dinner?" Lee asked as he got into the driver's seat of his sedan.

"Ice cweam," Aria suggested.

Lee shook his head, laughing.

And then he drove them to Baskin Robbins.

Kara was going to kill him if she found out.

**the end**

(except for Book III, if I ever finish writing it)


	29. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Chicago O'Hare was Hades as far as Lee was concerned; too many frakking flights to keep track of.

He'd lost the paper with Kara's landing terminal information, so he decided to just wait by the gate where their connecting flight was departing from on its way to New York.

As Kara finally emerged, heading towards him with Aria in one of those rented strollers, Lee saw an expression he hadn't seen in years: Starbuck about to punch someone.

He hoped it wasn't him.

"Hey," he greeted both of them as he moved to pick up Aria. Three weeks since they'd last visited and she was already bigger.

"Daddy!" Aria screamed excitedly, drawing a few glances their way.

"Hey baby, how are you," he asked, moving the curls off her face.

"Pwesents," she offered as a reply.

"That's right, we're going to New York to open presents," Lee confirmed and Aria giggled and clapped excitedly.

Lee stole a glance at Kara, feeling relieved as he noticed she'd relaxed somewhat. He held out his free hand to her, and she took it.

"Sorry I wasn't there to greet you guys, I couldn't find the terminal because I lost the paper," he apologized as he realized just how many bags she was carrying. He knew how strong she was, so the weight wasn't an issue; he was more concerned about the insanity of trying to carry so much around in one of the busiest airports during the holidays.

She nodded, forgiving him as she sighed and laid her forehead on his shoulder. "Your daughter's acting up like a frakkin' Saggitaron," Kara moaned against the fabric of his jacket.

He glanced at Aria who offered him an innocent look. "Fwakkin'," Aria repeated, emphasizing Kara's point. To her credit, Kara didn't even flinch. Both parents had agreed if bad language was the only bad trait they passed on to their offspring, they would've done great.

Lee frowned; Aria's temper kept getting worse the longer she was away from him now. He'd get calls from Kara at all times asking him to talk to their daughter and settle her down. It made him feel guilty, but if things worked out as planned, their separation would soon be over.

"Sorry," he replied to Kara.

She pulled back and looked up at him from behind tired eyes.

Lee bent down and kissed her softly, hoping to cure some of her exhaustion with enough tenderness but her eyelids still looked heavy. "Come on, they're pre-boarding," he pointed towards the gate.

At least she'd be able to nap on the way to New York.

It wasn't until Kara was drooling on his jacket in their seats that Lee realized he'd never seen her so tired, not even during the initial Cylon attacks.

**_Sixteen Years and Four Months Later_ **

"The answer is no!" Kara insisted as she walked into their home with confidence.

Aria was right on her heel. "Mom, I'm not asking."

Kara stopped, dead in her tracks. Obviously Aria underestimated how strongly her parents felt about this issue. "You are not joining the Air Force," Kara gritted out in the voice she used to reserve for Kat and a few of her more stubborn pilots.

"The Academy has accepted me already," Aria replied, holding out the admission letter. "This is what I want to do, and my mind is made up."

Kara took an unsteady breath, trying to stop the images of Zak's accident from popping in her mind. "Aristaeia… It's too dangerous."

Aria scoffed. "You did it, Dad did it, Pops did it. And don't give me the 'it was the end of the worlds' spiel because all of you made the decision to join the fleet long before that."

Kara blamed this on the Old Man, for having filled Aria's head with glamorous stories about the cockpit.

She and Lee had agreed early on that they wouldn't let their kids feel like it was their duty to wear a uniform; it was probably why Aria was talking to Kara instead of Lee. It was the one issue where Aria didn't have her father wrapped around her finger.

"We won't help you financially if you choose to go," Kara lied, running out of arguments to keep their daughter on the ground.

"Pops left me a trust fund; it's not much, but with my scholarship, it'll be enough," Aria argued back. "This is what I've wanted to do my whole life, Mom!"

Kara sighed. Aria was most definitely her parents' daughter; if anything, knowing that made it harder for Kara to let her do what she wanted.

If anything happened to Aria in the air… it would kill them.


	30. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Kara's stomach was doing flips as they exited the government-issued Sedan with diplomat plates that had picked them up from the airport.

Mary had been extremely considerate, even offered to have their Christmas dinner a few days early so Kara and Aria wouldn't miss out on spending the holidays with their extended family. Kara had thanked her, with a hug and an antique mantle clock she knew Mary would love, and she tried to spend her early Christmas celebration not freaking out. She would've probably tried to back out of this arrangement, except for the promise of seeing Helo and the old man…

…and Lee, her lonely heart and intermittent libido reminded her; phone calls weren't enough. There were news you couldn't break to someone over the phone…

…or in a busy airport…

…or in a government car…

…or in the presence of family and friends.

There was a small possibility that Kara was lacking the courage to tell him the truth; then again, Lee Adama tended to be the only person who could ever cause Starbuck to lose courage. Maybe she would just keep quiet and let him find out once she got to be the size of a house. Then again, Lee could be a little dense sometimes, and she didn't want him finding out when her water broke.

Watching the stick's second line appear had been as scary as the first time; however the aftermath had been completely opposite. With Aria, Kara had been just a shell of her old self, stranded on a strange planet and just starting to befriend Mary; as lonely as it had been, being pregnant then had meant there was no one to disappoint – at least until she looked into Aria's eyes and realized this was the one person in the universe she could never let down.

It would make sense that finding out she was pregnant a second time would be much easier; any doubts about Kara's maternal instincts had been erased by Aria, and Kara was completely established on Earth this time. Not to mention the fact that things were going better than she could've ever hoped for with Lee. And yet she was in complete denial about her symptoms, and it wasn't until Mary had once again thrust the box with the unused test in her hand that Kara had been forced to face the truth.

A quick visit to Dr. Ericson had confirmed the diagnosis and estimated she was about twelve to fourteen weeks along; he'd explained if she'd waited another week or two to take the home pregnancy tests, her hormone levels would've started to drop and she could've gotten false negatives, which would've meant she'd have continued to miss out on important prenatal care. Feeling properly chastised, Kara had gone home with a request slip for an ultrasound that would confirm date of conception and give her estimated due date,

That had been five days ago and she still hadn't worked up the courage to tell Lee.

Mary had jokingly said she wouldn't be able to hide it much longer, and that women started to show much earlier with a second pregnant; it wasn't until Kara had struggled to zip up her jeans before her flight that she'd realized it was true. She was still a couple of weeks, maybe a month, away from having to buy a new wardrobe, but she could definitely tell there was a bump developing in her midsection.

Kara suddenly couldn't think about courage or Lee or expanding waists, because the door to the upend condo opened, and Kara was graced with the vision of her hero. He moved pretty fast for an old man, and she met him halfway, wrapping her arms around him to make sure he wasn't just an illusion.

Stupid hormone-induced tears were threatening to spill so she pulled back, looking into the wise blue eyes of her former commanding officer. "It's good to see you, Starbuck."

She grinned up at him. "Good to see you too, sir."

He returned her smile before his gaze dropped to a bundled up Aria in Lee's arms, her face barely visible under the hood of her jacket.

Lee walked up to his father and Aria's face lit up as she recognized the older man in front of her. The look of adoration at finally meeting him in person was heartwarming – and, at the same time, painful to Kara. It reminded her of how much of a frak-up she was for keeping Aria away from this life. She could only vow not to make the same mistake with the child now growing inside of her.

"Pops!" Aria yelled excitedly, eyes darting back and forth between Kara and Lee as if she hadn't believed them when they'd told her she was going to meet her grandfather.

The older man was speechless.

Just when Kara thought her heart couldn't swell more in her chest, she watched as her daughter's grandfather reached out with both arms and picked up Aria.

If the look on the young girl's face was any indication, the amount of admiration for Bill Adama reached worrisome levels when you combined the Thrace and Adama genes.

**_Fifteen Years and Eight Months Later_ **

"Hey, Dad, do you have a minute?"

Lee turned from his work desk to see his son standing at the entrance to the home office. "Sure, Herm… what's up?"

"Uh," Hermes looked uncomfortable, clearly changing his mind. "Actually, nevermind…"

"Son, just tell me," Lee said as he got up and closed the door to the office, blocking the exit in the same way he usually had to do with Kara.

Apparently the urge to flee was a genetic trait and Hermes had certainly inherited it. Other than that, their younger child had grown up to be an exemplary teen and a welcome relief from Aria's constant antics.

Hermes sat down on his armchair; Lee had spent countless nights rocking his infant son to sleep there, and after Hermes started to walk, the boy would always end up in the office, on that armchair, silently watching Lee work.

Lee kicked himself when he realized it had to have been at least three years since Hermes had last sat down on the armchair. His son was growing up, and he was always so quiet it was easy to mistake the silence for placidity.

"Dad, am I a good son?"

Lee was taken aback by the question; he hadn't been sure what this conversation would be about, but this was definitely a curve ball. "Of course you are, Hermes. You're the best son I could've ever asked for."

"But I'm not like you or mom or Pops. Remember how Pops always said that there's no feeling for an Adama like flying a Viper?"

Lee nodded strainedly; his father's continued boosting of flying to the kids had been the cause of problems for Kara and Lee. They struggled with the consequences on a daily basis, but it was usually with Aria, not Hermes. "Son, you know better than that," Lee added softly. "Your grandfather was right about one thing: it takes courage to fly a Viper. But it takes even more courage to be yourself, and you shouldn't let anyone ever make you believe otherwise."

Hermes took all of it in, before he shrugged and brought his legs up on the armchair. He was almost too big for it, now that he was as tall as Lee and still growing. While Aria was a miniature of Kara, Hermes looked more like his uncle and his grandfather than he looked like Lee. It should be painful to Kara and him to have a continuous reminder of Zak, but it never felt painful.

"Aria would be a good pilot… I don't think I would," Hermes added after some quiet consideration.

"I wouldn't love you any less if you were the best pilot on Earth or the worst in the whole galaxy. And you know how I feel about you or your sister risking your lives out there," Lee added, hoping Hermes would see sense where his sister seemed unable or unwilling.

"Do you think she'll enlist like she's been threatening, Dad?"

Lee finally understood what was going on with Hermes; he wasn't worried for himself, but for his sister. "Your sister can be unpredictable sometimes," Lee tried to say with as much reassurance as he could.

The truth was that Aria was very predictable; whatever Kara and Lee least wanted her to do was always what she ended up doing.

"I'll keep her safe, Dad," Hermes promised.

"I know you will, son," Lee replied, allowing a silence to fall between them as his son continued to watch him from his old spot.


	31. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

The moment Lee saw the condo his father shared with Laura, he'd been skeptical about his father's constant complaints of lack of space; Lee remembered the boxes of belongings his father had sent to him because he hadn't been able to fit them in his new home.

And then Lee entered the condo - after Laura hugged him and told him how glad she was he'd finally made it in for a visit, he understood why there had been no room for extra books and pictures. Every wall of the place seemed to be packed tight with Earth and colonial books, model ships and planes, and pieces of equipment that probably belonged to _Galactica_ and the _Colonial One_.

Every photo of Aria that Lee had ever sent to his father was properly framed and displayed, and the toddler was quick to recognize them, pointing her finger with surprise.

"That's right, these are pictures of you," Bill confirmed, holding his granddaughter close.

Lee remembered his mother had always complained their father had never connected with the kids until they were older; she'd said he was always away and when he came home he could never bring himself to hold them or kiss them. Lee remembered how alien it had felt when his father hugged him after his dog died; he must've been eight or nine, and the realization that his father did indeed love him had astounded Lee for weeks.

Bill Adama had changed a lot over the years; if Lee hadn't been sure of it already, he would've been as shocked about watching his father hold Aria close as he'd been the day he'd gotten his first hug. Lee's eyes spanned across the room to see Laura Roslin smiling, her eyes locked on the scene playing out in her living room.

Kara was obviously also affected by the exchange between grandfather and granddaughter, and Lee reached out to touch her. His fingers found their way under the sweater she was wearing, finding a tiny patch of skin above the waistband of her jeans. The touch was electric and he almost felt embarrassed for it, especially considering the way Kara's cheeks turned red. Lee just moved to pull her close so she could hide her reaction to his touch; their unspoken bond working out perfectly as Kara placed her head against his neck, and his arms enveloped her tight.

"He looks so happy," Kara whispered against his neck after a while.

"Kind of disturbing, isn't it?" Lee joked and she nodded against his skin. "I think he's going to spoil her rotten if we let him."

"I don't think we can stop him," she pointed out. "I haven't ever been good at denying the Old Man anything. After what I've done, keeping Aria away from you two, I won't say anything if he buys her enough gifts to fill the _Galactica _hangar bay."

It was Lee's turn to nod as he continued to watch his father. Laura held out her hands and Bill handed the toddler over even as he kept a hand on Aria's back. Lee was too far away to hear what was being said, but Aria giggled and Laura beamed at the girl.

Bill watched the scene with a myriad of emotions on his face, and Lee couldn't help but consider what had changed his father so much. Losing Zak had definitely been the catalyst, but Lee was sure some of the changes were also triggered by the meeting between his father and Kara, as well as his relationship with Laura.

Lee wondered if he had ever played any part in his father's transformation.

* * *

**Fourteen Years and Five Months Later **

Kara fought to maintain her eyes on the road in front of her. Aria's fingers were banging on the dashboard in tune with whatever music she was listening to through her ear buds.

Feeling exasperated, Kara tugged on the headphones until they fell to the seat.

"Mom!" Aria grumbled from her seat, and the redness of the bruise on her daughter's chin and cheek infuriated Kara. She had plenty of experience with shiners and Kara knew it was going to turn purple by the end of the day, blue and green the next day and stick around for at least a week.

"I said no more fights, Aria," Kara gritted out, hands grasping the steering wheel tightly.

"I know!" Aria screamed back.

"Then tell me why, one week before school gets out, you're sporting a bruise the size of a battlestar on your right cheek."

Aria turned away, focusing on the landscape outside the family car.

"It wasn't her fault, Mom," Hermes spoke from the backseat. "It was mine," he admitted, hazel eyes meeting Kara's through the rearview mirror.

"You don't get into fights," Kara pointed out. While her daughter had started throwing punches when she'd hit puberty – and had not stopped - her son tended to think things through, and wasn't prone to physical outbursts.

"Some kids were teasing me, so Aria jumped them," he explained.

"Is that true, Aria?" Kara asked her daughter, even though Hermes had no reason to lie.

Aria shrugged in response, continuing to stare out the window.

Kara sighed, trying to come up with an adequate punishment. Memories of the _Galactica_ brig flashed through her mind, but Kara knew confining her daughter to any one room after one of these outbursts tended to instigate even more rebellion; the girl was as impervious to that kind of grounding punishment much like Kara had been.

Lucky for Kara, fear of disappointing their father seemed to be a running trait in the Adama side of the family, and she hadn't ever hesitated using that as a punishment.

"You two are explaining what happened to your father," she told them.

"But mom—," Aria started to argue before she began pouting.

"And I don't mean when he gets home," Kara added. Lee had been gone for almost three days, with four more to go, and she hated to admit it but she missed him. "You're calling him as soon as we get inside the house."

Aria knew she couldn't win this argument, so she bit her full lower lip as she nodded.

* * *

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